Standup comic Sebastian Maniscalco brings it to the Basie stage for an unprecedented six-show engagement this week.
What’s Wrong With People? Aren’t You Embarrassed? Why Would You DO That?!
For stand-up comedy star (and asker of those signature queries) Sebastian Maniscalco, the real question would have to be why wouldn’t he — as in, why wouldn’t a hard-working, dues-paying veteran of the nation’s “tough rooms” continue to surf a still-swelling wave of momentum that’s seen the onetime waiter hailed as no less than Stand Up Comedian of the Year?
While the Chicago native might seem an overnight sensation to some, his was a path that had as much to do with countless open-mic sign-ups and bowling alley gigs as it did his hit cable TV specials, popular podcasts, and high-profile appearances on Fallon, Conan, and Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars. When he comes to Red Bank for the first time this Thursday evening, the restless observer of modern mores will be forced to park it here for a spell, as he fulfills a commitment for six — count ’em — headlining shows on the stage of the Count Basie Theatre.
Running for three nights (through Saturday, January 21), the extended engagement promises to bring the comic’s trademark “witheringly sarcastic and exasperated take on modern behavior and etiquette” to the theater-sized audiences he faced in his top-rated specials for Comedy Central and Showtime — a platform that’s worked very well in concert with his regularly sold-out club dates, and his weekly perch as co-host of the Pete and Sebastian Show.
Funnyman aficionados might further recall Maniscalco from his career-boosting participation in the comedy concert film Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days and 30 Nights — Hollywood to the Heartland. It’s to the big screen that he returns later this year, in the Will Ferrell-Amy Poehler comedy The House, in addition to lending his voice skills to the animated feature The Nut Job 2.
Sebastian Maniscalco performs two shows nightly (7 and 9:30 p.m.) on January 19, 20 and 21. Take it here for available tickets ($39.75-$79.75, with a $250 VIP Meet and Greet option) — then go here for details on more upcoming attractions on the Basie boards, including two nights worth of Dancing with the Stars Live! (1/23-24); crooner Sal Valentinetti of America’s Got Talent fame (1/26), and a screening of Monty Python and the Holy Grail introduced by none other than John Cleese (1/29).
