Pescatelli balancing life, career in Meadville-based reality show

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January 25, 2011

By Ryan Smith Meadville Tribune The Meadville Tribune Wed Jan 26, 2011, 05:05 PM EST

MEADVILLE — Tammy Pescatelli has a line when she’s asked how she happens upon her best stand-up material:

“I wake up,” she says.

Now that the stand-up comic’s waking up to small-town family life in Meadville instead of the glitz of Hollywood, she says she’s finding some of her funniest material yet. Starting tonight, TV audiences here and around the country can see what she’s talking about.

“A Stand Up Mother,” premiering at 10 p.m. on WeTV, turns the cameras on Pescatelli as she attempts to juggle her duties as an in-demand comedian, wife and mother — all while living in Meadville, where she and her husband, Luca, moved in 2008 to be closer to her family and raise their son, now almost-3-year-old Luca.

“We’re not train wrecks, by reality (TV) standards,” says Pescatelli. “My husband and I are passionate show-business people trying to adapt to this town,” she adds, “and we’re going through the same struggles as a lot of people” working to find balance between family and careers.

The difference, Pescatelli says, is that she is “blessed” with not only a knack for making jokes about those struggles, but also the ability (through the show and her stand-up routines) to let everyone in on the laughs.

Tonight’s series premiere “is basically the introduction to everything,” she says, in which viewers get a chance to become acquainted with the show, its brand of humor, its cast and its setting.

And, of course, “you’ll see Meadville,” Pescatelli says. “If you look close, you might see a lot of people you know.”

Places, too — easily-recognizable locales set the backdrop for much of the program, and Meadville itself “is a character in our show — a huge part” of everything that happens, she said.

The first episode, titled “The Wedtismal,” follows Pescatelli as she and Luca plan for (and bring to fruition) a dual wedding/baptism event aimed mainly at pleasing her mother-in-law, a highly opinionated Brooklynite. And it includes a lot of local elements — familiar streetscapes, shops, establishments, performers and even community leaders are featured in scenes that never stray too far from the fray of funny.

The Italian Civic Club in downtown Meadville is where some of the action happens. “We loved having them here” to film, says ICC Manager John Quinn. “It was a great time.”

With everything that happens there and elsewhere, the first show is going to be a “fun episode for Meadvillians,” Pescatelli says.

Meadvillians: “That’s a fun word to say.”

There are some obvious differences between Meadville and L.A., says Pescatelli, but whether it’s Hollywood or rural northwestern Pennsylvania, “there’s chaos no matter where you go.

“Here, I have family chaos,” she says, and its roots run deep, with her family’s history in Crawford County extending all the way back to 1902, when her great-grandfather, Pietro Simonetta, arrived in Meadville after emigrating from Sicily and went to work on the Erie Railroad.

Pescatelli grew up in nearby northeast Ohio, but says she spent a lot of time with family in Meadville, and “I’ve always felt at home” here.

“There’s a lot to be said for community,” she says. “The community holds you up, your family holds you up. ...(And) I really, really, really want to make sure everyone in town knows how grateful I was to be supported” as the six-episode season was taped between October last year and early this month.

The new show is a first for Pescatelli, but she’s no stranger to TV cameras. Since launching her stand-up career in the mid-1990s, she’s had continuing success before nationwide audiences, gaining acclaim as a finalist on NBC’s “Last Comic Standing 2,” appearing (twice) as a guest on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” and being featured in her own half-hour special for Comedy Central, where she also won the “2010 Stand-Up Showdown.”

With those and numerous other career successes under her belt, “I could move anywhere in the world,” Pescatelli says, but in looking for the right place to raise Luca, “we chose Meadville because we know it’s a great place.”

When it comes to “A Stand Up Mother,” Pescatelli says, “I’m very proud of the work we’ve done. (And) I’m excited for people to see it. I know it’s funny.”

And “hopefully,” she says, “it’s funny to everyone else.”

Ryan Smith can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at rsmith@meadvilletribune.com

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Pescatelli balancing life, career in Meadville-based reality show

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