How to go
What: The Tenderloins Comedy Tour featuring the stars of truTV’s “Impractical Jokers”
Where: Schuster Center, Second and Main streets, Dayton
When: 7:30 p.m. Monday
Cost: $49.50, $125
More info: 937-228-3630 or www.ticketcenterstage.com
Artist info: www.thetenderloins.com
As classmates at an all-boys high school on Staten Island, N.Y., in the early 1990s, it wasn’t uncommon for buddies Sal Vulcano, Joe Gatto, James Murray and Brian “Q” Quinn to get reprimanded for cutting up in class. Two decades later, that shared need to joke around has opened up new opportunities, including a cross-country bus tour and a performance at the Schuster Center in Dayton on Monday, Sept. 22.
The four longtime friends have been performing collectively as the Tenderloins since 1999, but the comedy team’s career has grown considerably since their breakthrough hidden-camera series, “Impractical Jokers,” premiered on truTV in 2011.
“A lot of people think we came out of nowhere,” Vulcano said. “We technically started doing comedy together in high school, and we formed the Tenderloins 15 years ago. We performed constantly for that whole tenure. We did sketch shows and improv shows, and we had some other failed TV pilots and projects. We went up and down. We thought we had something, and then we didn’t.
“That persistence finally paid off,” he said. “We got an opportunity we were prepared for because of all the work we did prior to that, but it really is like lightning in a bottle. We got really, really lucky. We’re fortunate people liked the show and it took off.”
The Tenderloins new truTV series, “Jokers Wild,” premieres after “Impractical Jokers” at 10 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 25.
“We’re our own lead-in,” Vulcano said. “There’s still six brand new episodes of ‘Impractical Jokers’ left for season three. We start filming season four in November and it starts airing in January. ‘Jokers Wild’ is a 100 percent different show. It’s a sketch comedy show in a studio with an audience, kind of back to what we did in the past. We also have guests in the studio and we float in a lot of clips like remote field pieces. It’s basically a half-hour variety show.”
“Impractical Jokers,” which wraps Season 3 with a final run of episodes beginning at 9:30 p.m. Thursday, has become so popular the Tenderloins are now touring like rock stars.
“For the last two years we’ve basically been flying out every other weekend and going all across the country,” Vulcano said. “This is the first time we’re going out for a cross-country bus tour. It’s crazy. The venues we’re playing in now are probably five-times larger than the ones we were playing only two years ago.
“We’re on cloud 9,” he said. “I don’t know how long you get to do that, so we’re enjoying every minute of it.”
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