A Boston native with a knack for making others laugh with his wise-cracking jokes at the city is performing on the South Shore later this month to make fun of Bostonians, hopefully to their faces.
Steve Sweeney compares being a comedian to being a rockstar.
“You can fill a place, but when you’re on stage and your job is to do 45 minutes to an hour or an hour and a half, you have to have the goods,” he said in an interview with MassLive Monday.
“A comedy show gives you a relief from your life for an hour,” Sweeney added. “My audiences come to have fun and they have fun and they enjoy it.”
In the ever-changing comedic landscape where a ton of new comedians come up through social media, Steve Sweeney credits his legacy to always introducing fresh material and having a brotherhood of comics.
Sweeney came up in the more traditional sense. He started out as part of a group of Boston comedians who performed regularly at a comedy club in Ding-Ho, a Chinese restaurant near Inman Square in Cambridge, in the early 1970s.
Working with the likes of Lenny Clarke, Denis Leary, Jay Leno, and more, Sweeney became known for his use of dialects and accents, especially the one he grew up with. The comedian’s routines often featured him breaking into his signature Boston accent while poking fun at the city and its residents.
“I’ve never been more relevant. I do it every day,” Sweeney said reflecting on his career. “I just keep to my own lane.”
Sweeney also performed on several shows, channels and festivals including the “Late Show with David Letterman,” “Evening at the Improv,” “Comics Come Home” and “Comedy Central.”
Sweeney also started his own Boston-based sitcom “Park Street Under,” which has been said to be an inspiration behind the hit series “Cheers.”
His film credits include “The Equalizer,” “Me, Myself & Irene,” “There’s Something About Mary,” “Next Stop Wonderland,” “Southie,” “Celtic Pride,” “Back to School” and more.
The comedian’s political satire has also been featured on Boston radio stations WZLX (“Mornings with Tai and Steve Sweeney,” “Sweeney’s Neighborhood”) and WATD (“Jay Mohr and Opie & Anthony”).
With all these lanes he has traveled down, Sweeney said he is most grateful for perfecting his writing.
“There’s two kinds of comedians. There’s writers and there’s actors and there’s performers. Writers tend to recite their material. Performers usually don’t have the material to back up their performance,” he explained. “It’s been integrated. It’s a craft.”
Sweeney will be bringing his writing and performing chops to River Club Music Hall in Scituate at 8 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 25. People can buy tickets here.
