Comedian Andrew Norelli is back in ‘the 707’

By Keri Luiz
Assistant Editor

Comedian Andrew Norelli, born in New York to New York parents, nonetheless is quite familiar with the Bay Area.

Norelli’s parents moved to Danville when he was 2. And at one time he lived in Glen Cove, right down the road from Benicia.

“I have shared in the 707,” he said Monday. “While not hardcore enough to have that tattooed on my body, I do feel that a part of me is with the 707. I have felt the joy of the 707, and I have paid the taxes in the 707.”

Now living in the Los Angeles area, the comedian will return to the 707 on Friday with a show at the Bay Terrace Theater in Vallejo.

Norelli likes to “come home” to the Bay Area to perform. “It’s been kinda neat, because I have friends and classmates that have been able to come see me do comedy over the years, whenever I perform in the Bay Area,” he said.

But growing up, Norelli didn’t expect to follow this path.

“I wanted to play sports — that was what I loved,” the avid tennis player said. “But I should have done drama because I would have been better at it.

“I liked being funny and I remember I enjoyed giving presentations or speeches in class. I always liked making those presentations funny.”

College wasn’t exactly a jumping-off point for a life in comedy, either: Norelli majored in sociology at the University of California-Berkeley.

“A lot of people think that somehow that might help with comedy, but part of the beauty of comedy is that it is not scientific, it is not academic. It is part innate, part emotion, and it’s part just learned skills, like learning the language of punchlines, which are very unnatural,” he said.

“It’s a very unnatural way to write and to speak, and nothing can really teach you other than just doing it.”

Norelli graduated, but boredom and lack of direction after college prompted him to try standup. His first effort came at an open mike at a small place in Concord called the Eurostop Café & Bar. “No one remembers it who even lives there, so it must have been completely under the radar,” he said.

“A few of the local comedians, we still talk about that place. That was a starting ground for a few of us. That was where a few of us met and still maintain friendships to this day. I loved having that as my first place to perform.”

Now a comic veteran, Norelli has appeared on such shows as “The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson,” “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and Comedy Central’s “Live at Gotham.”

Like a lot of comedians, he hasn’t gotten that “one big break.” But as he noted, few do.

“Building your comedy career and becoming a better comedian is a slow process, and it’s one (where) one thing leads to another, often,” he said. “A lot of times people know you along the way, because the comedy community in L.A. where I live now is surprisingly small. People will have seen you or already heard about you, even before you do things, because it’s a small community.”

If You Go
Andrew Norelli is performing Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at the Firehouse Arts Center, 4444 Railroad Ave., in Pleasanton. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased by calling 925-931-4848 or online at firehousearts.org. He is also performing Friday night at 8 p.m. at the Bay Terrace Theater, 51 Daniels Ave. Tickets are $18 and can be purchased by calling 800-838-3006 or online at brownpapertickets.com.

Editor’s note: This story has been corrected to reflect that Andrew Norelli graduated UC-Berkele; the original incorrectly stated he hadn’t. The Herald regrets the error.