Sebastian Maniscalco – November 15, 2019 Bell Centre

In 2018, Sebastian Maniscalco reached heights that few comedians could ever dream about. With a string of record-breaking, sold-out arena and theatre shows; a best-selling memoir, Stay Hungry; and a role in Green Book, which won Best Picture at the Academy Awards, it’s no surprise that Billboard honored him with their inaugural “Comedian of the Year” award.

The man Jerry Seinfeld calls “my favorite comedian” was one of Pollstar’s top 30 highest-grossing performers in the world, and was nominated for that publication’s Comedy Tour of the Year award. He sold out five shows at Radio City Music Hall, and the latest in Maniscalco’s five television comedy specials (for Netflix, Showtime, and Comedy Central) scaled new ratings heights, prompting NBC Nightly News to describe him as “comedy’s new superstar.”

But “Stay Hungry” is more than just a slogan for the Chicago-born Maniscalco—it’s a way of life. And so in 2019, the man dubbed “the comedian’s comedian” by People magazine shows no sign of slowing down. The same week in January that his Netflix original special, Stay Hungry, was released, he performed an astonishing four sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden, breaking the record for highest-grossing comedy event ever in North America. All this in addition to the main event, the launch of a brand-new tour titled “You Bother Me.”

As a profile in Vulture noted, “Maniscalco, without a breakout TV or film role, built a tremendous fan base the old-fashioned way: one joke at a time, one audience at a time.” The comedian expresses great pride in this hard-fought trajectory. “When I first started doing comedy, I never thought about doing arenas,” he says. “But in the course of 21 years, hitting the pavement, taking pictures with people, I developed a very loyal fan base. A couple would come to a show, then they’d come back and bring their family or their neighbors, and it just kinda swelled. Now you have limo buses pulling up to the shows—it’s just staggering.”

Maniscalco expresses more surprise regarding Stay Hungry, his best-selling book. “I thought writing books was reserved for ex-presidents and people who survived disasters,” he says. “But I did think there were stories—old jobs I had, meeting my wife—where the best way to share them would be to wrap it up in a book. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, it took a while, but I’m very proud of it.”

Since moving to Los Angeles in 1998, Maniscalco has served as a textbook example of perseverance and hustle, initially earning his place as a favorite at LA’s legendary Comedy Store. After Vince Vaughn enlisted him for his popular “Wild West Comedy Show,” Maniscalco began his ascent to what Pollstar dubbed “the vanguard of a live comedy revolution,” becoming a favorite on late-night television and a touring juggernaut, eventually being named Just For Laughs’ Stand Up Comedian of the Year in 2016.

The biggest focus for Sebastian Maniscalco in 2019 is the launch of the “You Bother Me” tour. “I constantly walk around going, ‘This guy bothers me.,’” he says. “Things you would probably just blow off, I get incensed by. But out of that kernel comes really great stuff. My wife never worked in a restaurant, but I worked in restaurants my whole life. So a lot of the show is just taking the audience through things like the entire experience of going to a sit-down dinner with my wife and her family and all the things that annoy me.”

For tickets and information: www.evenko.ca 514-790-2525 or 1-877-668-8269