Corporate America just didn’t appeal to Sheng Wang.
“I couldn’t come to terms that we were going to go to school for — I don’t know 18 years — and now they want me to work for a company for 40 years and do 40 hours a week and donate most of the value to a company. I couldn’t grasp that system,” said Wang, who found his career in making people.
The comedian will peform at the Columbia County Performing Arts Center Sept. 20. For tickets, go here.
Wang fell into comedy while in college. A group on campus wanted more Asian American students to perform; they could sing, dance, do spoken word, do comedy. He observed them for a year before joining. Other kids did stand-up, so Wang said he copied them.
“I wasn’t good at it, but it was fun and thrilling,” he said.
His focus became sharpening his craft – finding the joke that would always make people laugh and tweaking his act with every audience. He’s done plenty of open mics to work out the kinks on jokes.
He wasn’t interested in chasing stardom; he wanted a path that even with ups and downs would ultimately move upward. That trajectory skyrocketed when his first Netflix special, “Sweet and Juicy” aired in September 2023. He was also featured on HBO’s “2 Dope Queens” special and also wrote for the ABC show “Fresh Off the Boat.”
Since the Netflix special, Wang’s fan base has expanded and his calendar has been “cranked up,” with recent gigs taking him to New Zealand and Australia.
But to keep himself honest and to keep his shows fresh, Wang said he’ll venture out of the safe fan-filled venues to travel to a bar in L.A. for an open mic to test out his material on audiences. He’s been tweaking his current show in preparation for a second Netflix show.
Wang doesn’t regret his decision to eschew corporate America, and after all this time, he said comedy is still fun and thrilling.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for more than 35 years. She’s won multiple Georgia Press Association awards and is the recipient of the 2018 Greater Augusta Arts Council’s media award. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here.
