Before and after Andrew Della Volpe takes the stage comes a typical torrent of comedian stuff: being ghosted by a date, sobriety and mental health, homophobia, masturbation, feminist girlfriends, the medical issues of men in their 30s.
There’s a different energy when Della Volpe is on, with no manic leaping from topic to topic. He’s a genial everyguy whose time behind a mic takes on a single narrative that strolls steadily but unhurriedly from joke to joke, not so fast that you lack time to look around and take in the scenery. The material is not groundbreaking: kooky wife, married life, family politics, with all the random life-is-funny observations built into the structure of a sitcom starring Della Volpe as the center of the weirdness and often its bemused victim.
It’s what audiences can expect Friday during Della Volpe’s new hour at The Rockwell in Somerville.
The world building comes through in bits that are often too weirdly specific to be made up – a medical crisis outside a Mexican restaurant, avocado oil potato chips being hidden throughout his parents’ house – without making the audience feel like outsiders. When Della Volpe talks about taking the big step of making his wife his emergency contact instead of his mom, “I kind of feel like I’m making a huge mistake,” he says. “God forbid something happens, who would you rather be there? A 55-year-old mom of three who has a career, volunteers and whose idea of a wild night out is half a glass of chardonnay and some mahjong? Or my wife, who wanted to leave Whole Foods yesterday because there was ‘too much going on.’”
Della Volpe grew up in Concord and graduated from Colby College in 2017. As a senior, he interned at Sacha Baron Cohen’s production company and felt something click. “I thought, okay, maybe I want to be some sort of writer, maybe on a TV show,” Della Volpe said during a call. A producer suggested he try stand-up: “See how tough you are and get back to me.”
He fell in love with comedy, doing open mics and showcases where he met – and benefited from the advice of – Boston comedy veterans such as Tony V, Steve Sweeney and Lenny Clark. During Covid, he became master of the driveway show. He estimates he did as many as 75 socially distanced nights of comedy. He discovered that “I cannot write a joke unless it has happened to me first,” but that hasn’t hurt: Last year he was a finalist in the Boston Comedy Festival, and more recently he’s been opening for comedian Bob Marley on his national tour.
Della Volpe is still thinking like a writer, which takes him dangerously close to “humorist” territory. “Maybe it sounds a little pretentious, but I’ve really been trying to find my voice, or exactly who I am and what I want to talk about on stage. Having a throughline or an anchor can help guide that,” Della Volpe said. “I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but I’ve always been very like conscious when I write a set about getting from one thing to the other.”
It is not shocking that one of his formative experiences was going to The Wilbur with his dad to see Mike Birbiglia, the actor and comedian known for the clear but cleverly nested narratives of his solo shows. (His “Sleepwalk With Me” special was workshopped over a week circa 2010 at The Comedy Studio in Cambridge.)
“He tells one story for an hour show, oftentimes with an arc but definitely with a throughline. He was an early influence,” Della Volpe said. “My dad actually once said, ‘I think you could be like that.’”
Andrew Della Volpe, with guests, is at 7 p.m. Friday at The Rockwell, 255 Elm St., Davis Square, Somerville. $15 to $27.