Originally posted Thursday, October 25, 2018 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog
Sebastian Maniscalco isn't quite a household name - yet. But he's quickly moving up the ranks.
In Atlanta, he did the Tabernacle in 2016, the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre last year and is now coming to the much larger Fox Theatre this year for the first time November 18. (Tickets from $43.50 to $83.50 available here and there aren't a lot of open seats left.)
“I remember playing small comedy clubs in Atlanta on a Wednesday night with 12 people in the audience,” said Maniscalco in a phone interview today. “This makes me really reflect where I came from and where I am now. It’s a cool thing.”
In New York City, he’s doing four dates at Madison Square Garden (capacity: 20,000) in January.
“I knew I can draw in the Tri-State area,” he said. “I just didn’t know I could do four shows. It’s overwhelming!”
RELATED: My 2017 interview with Maniscalco
Maniscalco doesn't star in his own sitcom, isn't on a major sketch comedy show and hasn't starred his own movie.
Rather, he has grown his fan base like ventriloquist Jeff Dunham, who regularly does arenas: old-fashioned word of mouth. Maniscalco's physicality is Jim Carrey-esque. His observational humor evokes Jerry Seinfeld and Jim Gaffigan. His Italian heritage defines him.
Just watch him on YouTube doing his take on Whole Foods. “Everybody at Whole Foods looks like they make their own clothes,” he says, looking mildly disgusted. “Hemp clothing comes in two colors: oatmeal and throw up!”
For folks who were at his 2017 Cobb Energy show, he said there will be plenty of new material. "I'm always writing," he said. "I have a little baby. She's 18 months old. There will definitely be some family material, new parent material.'
He is also bringing a big video wall in Atlanta to enhance the experience for folks sitting in the cheap seats. "I'm so physical with a lot of facial expressions," he said. "Even the folks in the front rows end up watching the wall, not me. They're conditioned to watching screens."
Maniscalco, with all his amusingly jerky movements on stage, burns a decent amount of calories over 90 minutes. One time, he said he wore a heart-rate monitor and burned 486 calories (or the equivalent of about two medium-sized cannolis.)
At age 45, he said he now keeps himself in shape for his shows by swimming, given how low impact it is on the joints. But don’t grade him on technique. “I don’t swim like a fish,” he said. “I swim like I’m being chased by a shark. I’m quite aggressive.”
He recently came out with a book called "Stay Hungry," which features anecdotes about his life he felt didn't work well on stage. "You gotta make them laugh every 12 seconds," he said. "The book's stories are more descriptive in nature."
On Amazon, “Stay Hungry” gets a top average score of five stars, which means he has almost no troll-like haters. It helps that his material is studiously apolitical.
“People don’t want to hear about politics,” he said. “It’s all over their iPhones laptops and TVs already. They come to my show and it’s a safe space.”
Maniscalco, who began doing stand up 20 years ago, considers Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Tour in 2005 as his turning point. The tour, which hit 30 cities in 30 days, included Atlanta’s Center Stage, which was called Earthlink Live back in the day. He said at that point he was able to drop his waiting jobs and pursue comedy full time.
RELATED: My interview with Vince Vaughn regarding that tour
Since then, he said, it has been a steady build. "It's not like the old days when an appearance on 'The Tonight Show' with Johnny Carson gave you immediate cache and everybody immediately knows you," he said, which happened to folks like Roseanne Barr and his friend Seinfeld. "Now it's more like getting a viral YouTube video, then a Showtime special, then someone hears you on the Joe Rogan podcast. It's a culmination of different things."
He is now one of the highest paid comics in the business, according to Forbes magazine.
Maniscalco's TV profile has remained relatively muted. He tried to do one of those panels on Chelsea Handler's old E! show but felt it didn't fit his style of comedy. He's had stand-up specials on Showtime and Netflix. He taped a pilot with Tony Danza in 2016 on NBC but it didn't get picked up.
But he has nabbed a couple of roles in films, including a Viggo Mortensen movie "Green Book" coming out in November and getting great buzz. It's a reverse "Driving Miss Daisy": a working-class Italian-American bouncer becomes the driver of an African-American classical pianist on a tour of venues through the 1960s American South.
“I like the juxtaposition of serious acting roles compared to stand-up comedy,” he said. “I think it gives me a nice dynamic as far as doing something different.”
COMEDY PREVIEW
Sebastian Maniscalco
7 p.m., November 18
$43.50-$83.50
The Fox Theatre
660 Peachtree St NE, Atlanta
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