While Bostonians continue to battle the latest bout of cold-ass winter chaos, Ralph Barbosa is looking forward to making his way to the city with a little cool ass fun of his own in store.
After years of hoping to visit the land of some of his favorite movies, and subsequently putting himself on the daily stand-up grind, Barbosa is finally getting the chance to bring his laid back brand of comedy to Boston for two shows at The Wilbur on Thursday (January 18), as part of his Super Cool Ass Tour. Although the ability to bring his craft to new cities harbors as much of a tourist’s excitement as it does for him professionally, Barbosa is just looking forward to meeting new people in a new space, especially after the exciting year of new opportunities and milestones he had in 2023.
“This will be my first time being able to visit Boston, and I’ve always wanted to visit,” Barbosa tells Vanyaland. “Boston is a city that has always stood out to me because of the movies I love like Good Will Hunting and The Departed, so I’m going super tourist mode when I’m there. I’m just hoping that people come out and that they’re just as excited to have me as I am to be there.”
One such milestone he reached last year was being able to record and release his debut hour-long special, Cowabunga, on Netflix. Within the hour, the Dallas native offers up a hometown serving of his even keel and almost sneaky comedic potency, which really gives viewers the feeling that we’re seeing what he’s all about.
While the hour delves into many aspects of Barbosa’s life and keeps things largely autobiographical, it wasn’t necessarily his plan of vision to do it that way. In fact, Barbosa didn’t really have a plan or vision at all with how it would be shaped, partly as a result of the advice from a fellow comedian he has respected and looked up to for years.
“About a month before taping the special, I was able to meet and chat with Nate Bargatze, and his advice was very good. I feel like I can relate to his work ethic and approach when it comes to comedy, and he told me not to hold anything back or save jokes,” says Barbosa. “He told me to take what I thought was my best material and put it out there to give people a fun special to watch, and so I went into it with that mentality.”
Being able to record the special was a great experience for Barbosa. He’s grateful for the praise and support he’s received as a result of it, but he’s also quick to admit that, while that whole opportunity was great, the pressure of sticking the landing on the special had him a bit nervous, and in turn, his new hour has him feeling a bit more free and loose to explore what truly makes him the comedian he’s introduced us to already.
“Now that there isn’t a taping coming up, I really feel like the hour that I put together for this new tour is a lot more of my natural self because there’s no pressure,” says Barbosa. “These jokes don’t have a deadline. Everything I’m doing right now, in my opinion, is way more fun and loose, so I’m enjoying it. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy my special, because I did, but this new hour is feeling really good and I hope people come out to check it out and see exactly what I’m talking about.”
While the new hour is still fresh on United States soil, Barbosa is already looking to the future and wanting to expand the reach of his work, with hopes of going overseas and gauging whether his jokes translate over there or not.
He had a very exciting year in 2023, as he toured extensively both on his own and with Bert Kreischer’s highly-successful Fully Loaded Comedy Festival. Although that success has been what he’s worked for since he was 19, he didn’t always think it was totally possible. That is, until he got the biggest news of his life a few years in.
“Even when I first started doing it, I knew I wanted to do it every day, but I didn’t think of it as a full-time thing,” says Barbosa. “Then when I was 21, I found out I was going to have my son, and I just wanted to provide him with maybe not a crazy rich lifestyle, but a comfortable life. I knew I wanted to do that through stand-up, so I started to take it way more seriously. Knowing that I was going to be a dad made me kick it into the next gear.”
As he makes his inaugural trip to the city, there’s a lot that Barbosa is looking forward to aside from introducing us to his next hour. But above all else, he’s really looking forward to simply finding new people that will hopefully enjoy his craft.
“I think what I’m looking forward to most about coming to do comedy in Boston is that, even if my shows aren’t to sell out, I hope that enough people could see me there, even if it’s their first time ever hearing about me, and enjoy what I’m doing enough so that the next time I come through the city, maybe they’ll tell their friends and even more people will come,” says Barbosa. “I just hope the people of Boston who haven’t heard of me can now hear about me.”
RALPH BARBOSA :: Thursday, January 18 at The Wilbur Theatre, 246 Tremont St. in Boston, MA :: 6:30 p.m. and 9 p.m., $35 to $45 :: Advance tickets