Well, it may have taken Piscopo longer than he had hoped, but he finally has what he's craved for so long: Tonight, Club Piscopo opens in the ornate, but criminally underused for years, Starlight Room on the second floor of Resorts Atlantic City.
Piscopo will spend at least the rest of the summer performing and emceeing at the four-night-a-week operation whose format is a new-old wrinkle in casino entertainment.
Not just another three-comic-a-night joketeria, Club Piscopo will blend stand-up with other forms of entertainment, primarily jazz, a type of music that has historically received short shrift from the local gaming industry. There are also plans to bring in specialty acts. This weekend, the featured performer is comic Jeff Norris. Next weekend, up-and-coming jazz-pop crooner Tony DeSare will be showcased. July 14-17, "SNL" alum Father Guido Sarducci shows up.
Most important, said the Passaic, N.J. native, the cabaret will reflect his show business sensibilities, which he has no problem acknowledging as "old school."
"As a child in the 1950s, I can remember seeing Tony Bennett sitting in a chair and singing [on TV]," he offered. "Seeing great entertainers like Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. and Danny Thomas . . . "
He also remembers the lesser-known entertainers who also had an impact on his young psyche. "Guys like [Philadelphian] Guy Marks," who spent decades in nightclubs, but never achieved mainstream success, he explained. "I always had that love of the lounge, and it's still in me," he said.
For Piscopo, who pretty much put New Jersey on the pop culture radar ("You from Jersey? What exit?") as a "Saturday Night Live" star in the early 1980s, opening Club Piscopo isn't so much a dream fulfilled as it is a lifelong "purpose" realized. And it's as much about Atlantic City as anything.
