On April 13, Chippewa native Dan Rosenberg will return to the Linsday Theater and Cultural Center in Sewickley for a night of stand up comedy with “The Coast to Coaster Tour.”

Rosenberg’s comedy career spans more than three decades and includes stand up, writing, emceeing and radio hosting. He graduated from Blackhawk High School, where he wanted to be a basketball player.

“I was the tallest, worst player,” he said in a phone interview. “In 1986, when Blackhawk won the championship, I was the tallest member of the team and I was a manager.”

He did a stint as a high school basketball coach and was hired at 20 to fill in for a year as head coach at Avonworth High School. After that, when the job offers weren’t coming in, he decided to go in a different direction.

“I told my friend, listen, if I don’t get this last job, let’s go to the Funny Bone and just give comedy a try,” he said.

Despite suffering from stage fright, Rosenberg found that he enjoyed performing with his friend, Eric Schiemer. Then one night, Schiemer couldn’t make it.

“I went on alone and I did really well. I was in shock. I was so nervous and it went well,” Rosenberg said.

That was the moment, for him, that everything clicked.

“I was like, ‘I love this.’ The feeling was better than winning a basketball game,” he said.

He describes himself as a storyteller, drawing humor from things that have happened in his everyday life. “Most of the stuff I talk about is 90% true. You have to embellish a little bit to make it funny … but all comedy has to come from truth, really.”

He also said that adlibbing is a big part of his act, citing a time that an audience member’s phone started ringing during a show. “It happened to be exactly nine o’clock on a Saturday. So I started singing Billy Joel,” he said.

In 2020, he released his debut comedy album and special, “Dan Rosenberg: Overexposed.” It was recorded as a fundraiser for his local theater on Bainbridge Island, Wash., where he currently lives.

“I got an all-volunteer crew and one of the cameras glitched out and overexposed me, and we couldn’t use the shot,” he said.

The director of the special, Richard Malzahn, who works in visual effects in Hollywood, came up with an idea that made the footage usable.

“He said, ‘the only thing we can do is make this in black and white. If we switch it to black and white, it’ll look fine.’”

So that’s what they did.

Rosenberg plans to record a new version of the special this May, tentatively titled “Properly Exposed,” and release it in color. Much of the new material that he will be performing at the Lindsay Theater will make it into that recording.

Last year, he appeared at The Lindsay Theater to screen the pilot of his sitcom, “It’s A Lot.” He wrote and costarred in the pilot, acting alongside Rick Springfield (of “Jessie’s Girl” and “General Hospital” fame). The show is about a used car salesman, played by Rosenberg, and his rock star dad, played by Springfield.

He was inspired after seeing Springfield perform in concert — and by the crowd’s reaction to him.

“This guy’s old enough to be my dad, and the women are going nuts. And I thought, that’s a sitcom. Nobody’s done that with a hot dad. The dads are always balding and overweight. What if the kid is balding and overweight and the dad is skinny and has a nice head of hair?”

After shooting the pilot, Rosenberg took screenings on the road to eight different cities. The final screening was at the Lindsay Theater, and he calls the final cut “the Pittsburgh cut.”

“At the Pittsburgh show, we had some women drive five hours from Michigan who were Rick Springfield fans just to come to the Lindsay Theater to watch it,” Rosenberg said.

“It’s A Lot” is currently in search of a network home, and Rosenberg is optimistic about the interest it has generated so far. Doing the show has been a rewarding experience for him.

“It has been a blast,” he said.

Joining him for the show at Lindsay Theater will be “very special guest,” comedian Auggie Cook.

The Lindsay Theater and Cultural Center is a film-based arts nonprofit in Sewickley that focuses on bringing a variety of cultural, educational and entertainment film experiences to the community. They are open 365 days a year and focus on accessibility for all patrons. Recently, they have begun to see hosting comedy shows as more of an option.

Tickets for Dan Rosenberg’s “Coast to Coaster Tour” at 7:30 p.m. on April 13 at the Lindsay Theater and Cultural Center in Sewickley are $20 and can be purchased at thelindsaytheater.org.

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