Comedy is curated experience for his fans
Comic Sebastian Maniscalco hits 20-year mark
Developing a rapport with hotel staff members is not uncommon for celebrities, especially those who travel frequently. But when comedian Sebastian Maniscalco warmly greets the Four Seasons Los Angeles server who’s about to take his order, he’s not just commemorating the umpteenth time he’s popped in for a salad; rather, it’s because they worked side by side almost two decades ago while Maniscalco was quietly building what has become a comedy empire.
That relatability has helped him connect with one audience after another, and eventually, carried him from one side of the table to the other, where he is celebrating 20 years in comedy.
Maniscalco might be an under-the-radar performer to many among the teen and young adult demographic that worships at the altar of such iconoclasts as Hasan Minhaj, Hannah Gadsby and John Mulaney. But after winning Billboard’s 2018 Comedian of the Year, in part for selling out five shows at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, Maniscalco continued his streak with four soldout shows in January at Madison Square Garden, setting a record for the highest-grossing comedy event ever in North America. He was also recently announced as the host of the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards, set for late August. By all accounts, it’s been a wild run of success for the Chicago native.
“I always wanted to get into comedy as a young kid,” Maniscalco tells Variety. “I was fascinated with all of the stuff around stand-up comedy, from the clubs to the specials. Every time we turned on the TV, there would be some type of stand-up show.”
After a few failed attempts to make a name for himself in Chicago (“I did stand-up once at Northern Illinois University. That’s where I got booed.”), he headed to Los Angeles.
“I came out here shortly after graduating college in 1998 and got a job in the Four Seasons’ Windows Lounge waiting tables on every celebrity that you could possibly imagine.”
Bruce Hills, president and COO of the Just for Laughs Group, recalls, “I actually was having a drink at the Four Seasons with Dom Irrera, a very funny comedian friend of mine and now Sebastian’s, and Sebastian was our waiter. Dom was very complimentary and said he was a really nice guy, and we all had a nice chat.”
Hills, who went on to recruit Maniscalco for the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival six times between 2008 and 2016, says the way he leveled up with each performance — resonating with bigger and broader audiences — was something that he’d seen few other comedians do.
“At first we put him on the Relationship Show, and then we had a show called the Ethnic Comedy Show where he played the Italian — big surprise,” Hills says. “Obviously he connected with Italians, but what we saw automatically was that he was able to somehow connect with everyone in the room from all standpoints demographically.”
Still, Maniscalco says it took him a while to figure out who he was as a performer, even if he found a lot of inspiration from the kinds of observations that made Jerry Seinfeld, Johnny Carson, Brian Regan and others into industry luminaries.
“In the beginning I was extremely angry and not really likable, but I think I had a point of view really early on. I was really disgusted with human behavior,” he says. “So it was, ‘How do you take that point of view and make yourself likable to the audience?’ ” He eventually resorted to taking comedy classes, which helped him hone that onstage persona. “A comedy class is actually frowned upon amongst a lot of comedians, but it helped me because it was a supportive environment.”
Like his heroes, Maniscalco’s standup routines addressed everyday subjects such as restaurant etiquette, going to the gym and dealing with in-laws, but his are filtered through an oversized Italian American persona that has become both a beloved, quotable character, and a universal adapter for his eclectic fan base’s cultural idiosyncrasies.
“If you look at his early work, it’s pretty straight monology,” says Levity Live partner Judi Marmel, who has managed Maniscalco for over a decade. “Now he doesn’t just tell the joke, he shows you the joke. But he’s also talking about something that’s a touchpoint in your life. And we saw that explosion go from just being something that Italian Americans could relate to, to an immigrant experience that could apply to just about anybody.”
Maniscalco credits his personal growth — inspired by being exposed to Los Angeles’ cultural diversity — as a reason he was able to refine that youthful anger into something accessible, not to mention humorous, to multiple generations.
“I was 24 years old when I first came out here, and it took some maturing when I came out here to kind of shed that kind of narrowminded view I had growing up in Chicago,” he admits.
Although he frequently touches on his family’s cultural specificities, Maniscalco avoids talking directly about religion or politics, a shrewd decision in an era of instant social media “cancellation” over a casually insensitive remark or liking the wrong tweet.
“I don’t think people want to hear it, to be honest with you,” he says.