Comedian Sheng Wang Is Bringing His Biggest Tour Ever to Dallas

After more than two decades in comedy, Sheng Wang is still evolving on stage.

Ahead of his show at the Majestic Theatre on June 21, Wang spoke with us about the arc of his career and how he ended up taking his new material on his biggest tour ever.

While he's a seasoned performer, the comedian still wants to make sure everyone who comes out to see him has a good time, but playing to a large theater (the Majestic can seat around 1,700 people) comes with a different kind of pressure than testing out material at a local comedy club.

“This is my first, like, ‘theater tour,’” says Wang, who was initially reluctant to start performing in these much larger venues.

He grew up in Houston and cut his teeth in comedy in the Bay Area while attending U.C. Berkeley. He started out performing in San Francisco’s clubs and quickly felt at home in that type of environment. Despite his success in the industry since those modest days, he has always viewed himself as more of a “club comedian.”

“It’s still a pretty big deal to perform for…thousands of people, or at least hundreds of people,” says Wang. “I feel like, especially a good comedy club, it’s a nice intimate space, between 200 or 300 people, or even less.”

Scaling up made sense at this point in Wang’s career, though. His resume is stacked with modern comedy triumphs: a stint competing on Last Comic Standing, credits as a writer and executive story editor on the ABC sitcom Fresh Off the Boat, and his own Netflix special called Sweet and Juicy, released in 2022. Now, as his profile has been raised nationally, this new tour will culminate in the filming of another comedy special later this year in Washington, D.C.


Though Wang is taking bigger stages and perhaps shedding the "club comedian" descriptor, he's still keeping close to his roots. On this tour, he's joined by a peer from the San Francisco comedy circuit named Kevin Camia. By having Camia as an opener, Wang is not only able to be joined by someone whose work he admires but also feels a sense of lasting connection with the small club scene he grew up in.

Wang understands quite well that standup is a fluid art form. The comedian says he is constantly evaluating and tweaking his delivery to maximize impact. Even if the bones of his show are the same, no two performances are ever identical — the experience at the Majestic this weekend will not be one-to-one with whatever ends up streaming on Netflix from D.C.

”I feel like it’s fun to do a good performance, it’s fun when the audience leaves happy, but ultimately, it’s more rewarding to me if we do the show, everyone has a good time, and I feel like I experimented a little bit,” says Wang.

What's more, he attributes his audience growth to becoming more comfortable working in his own voice—he's not a crowd-work or insult comic. Wang cites comedians like Mitch Hedberg and Dave Atell as influences on his comedic style.

At this point in his career, Wang says he has accepted, "What kind of comedy I like to do, what I want to share with people, and generally it’s sort of weird. It’s sort of thinky…but generally really silly and fun and kind.”

This comedic perspective has also, in a way, allowed Wang to foster to weed out the hecklers and foster a group of fans who match his wholesomeness.

“Every comedian has a demographic of fans who come out [for them],” he says. “And the slice of the city that comes out to [my] shows… It’s all kind of a similar group of kind, respectful, wholesome, good people.”

”Not that many people get kicked out of my shows,” he adds.

For Wang, this is all another step in his career journey. It is the manifestation of good fortune that has allowed him to continue refining his craft while delivering laughs along the way.

”It’s pretty cool to be a little part of people’s lives and, you know, in a way that helps them just be more present or feel a little bit lighter.”

Tickets for Wang's show at the Majestic Theatre are available here.