“An Evening with Sinbad,” kept the audience roaring with laughter throughout the show Friday Feb. 12 at Reynolds Performance Hall.
According to the UCA Calendar of Events, Sinbad has starred in television shows, “The Sinbad Show” and “A Different World,” and in films, “The Conheads,” “Houseguest” and “Jingle All the Way.” His favorite film hasn’t happened yet, Sinbad said. He still wants to make more movies.
He has been in comedy for 33 years, but being a comedian was not his first choice. When he was four-years-old, he knew he wanted to be famous and on TV, either by comedy, acting, or playing basketball. Alan King inspired him to pursue comedy, Sinbad said.
He has been ranked by Comedy Central as one of the top 100 standup comedians of all time. However, Sinbad believes it isn’t all about rankings.
The opening act was comedian, 31-year-old, Chase Anthony. Anthony is originally from Atlanta, Georgia, but currently lives in Los Angles, California. After his act, he stayed on stage with Sinbad the rest of the show.
Sinbad messed with Anthony during the entire show. At one point, Sinbad asked the females ages 35 and under to ask Anthony what was wrong with the new male generation.
Sinbad said he enjoys watching the audience’s reactions. His material ranged from mocking presidential candidates to how Conway is in a dry county.
The show was crowd interactive. Sinbad picked on random audience members, including a little girl and dad, a backstage worker and a few couples. Also, he answered questions from the crowd at the end of his performance.
The audience could take pictures during the performance but audio or video recording was forbidden, Amanda Horton, Director of UCA Public Appearances, announced.
About 12 weeks ago, Sinbad had back surgery. The recovery time gave him lots of free time to write and forced him to slow down because he couldn’t work out or be active for a few months. This was one of his first performances not wearing a back brace, Sinbad said.
Sinbad was a nickname he got when he was 17 or 18-years-old because he was inspired by Sinbad the Sailor. He liked that the sailor wasn’t royalty but all the kings and queens wanted to be with him, so he got the best of both worlds, Sinbad said.
According to Sinbad, his biggest success was doing what he wanted to do: being a comedian, a husband, a father and playing basketball. His tip for success is “Be successful, everyone’s success is different. Just be happy,” he said.
Balancing a show business career and personal life is the hardest thing, Sinbad said. He always tried to put family first; he has two sons and one daughter.
He has only missed two or three of his kids’ sports games and made sure he was there while they were growing up, Sinbad said.
Sinbad made a vow when he was traveling that he would never be caught up in all of it.
He saw Will Smith flying back and forth while he and his son were both shooting movies, and he didn’t want to do that. “Hollywood is bull-crap. At the end of the day, it’s all about real life,” he said.
His upcoming projects include another special and more TV shows and movies, Sinbad said.
