STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — “It’s a love letter to dysfunctional families, and it’s a little bit of a love letter to Staten Island, too.”
Candice Guardino’s debut comedy special, “Candice Guardino: Italian Bred,” arrives Jan. 27 via Comedy Dynamics, streaming on major platforms including Amazon and Apple. Filmed through her own Anthony Street Productions, the theatrical comedy has been years in the making, shaped city-by-city and story-by-story, but rooted in her Italian-American upbringing on Staten Island.
“I grew up in the best Staten Island lens possible,” Guardino told the Advance/SILive.com. “Everyone on our block knew each other. You’d come out of your front door and the neighbors would be sitting on their stoop … It was like this little bubble, but yet, at the same time, it was the most gigantic, eclectic and exciting world.”
That sense of closeness (and the lack of privacy that came with it) defines “Italian Bred.” In the special, Guardino seamlessly inhabits a rotating cast of family members: her hyper-vigilant mother, her blunt father, her loud younger sister, and most memorably, her rule-breaking grandmother.
And while the stories are deeply specific, their appeal is universal.
“Everyone’s got a family member or a family like this,” Guardino said. “I always wanted people to sit in the theater and go on a journey with me. My hope is that they literally feel like they’re in my living room, and then they feel like they’re part of my family.”
Guardino, a theater major who once envisioned a straight path to Broadway, didn’t plan to make a comedy special. The project evolved gradually, inspired by artists like Lily Tomlin, John Leguizamo and Whoopi Goldberg, whose one-person shows blurred the line between theater and stand-up.
“That to me was foreign,” she said. “I didn’t know how to get there. I was like, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing.’ So I started out with 10 minutes of material. Then 20. And over the years, we landed on a 90 minute [theatrical production].”
She’s careful not to label herself a traditional stand-up comic, though.
“I consider myself more of a storyteller,” Guardino said. “I definitely take you on a journey, and I incorporate theater and music and singing, and each character grows throughout the show.”
Candice Guardino’s theatrical comedy special “Italian Bred” streams Jan. 27 on Amazon, Apple and other platforms, featuring stories from Guardino’s Italian-American upbringing on Staten Island.Courtesy of Dirty Sugar Photography.
That theatricality is physical as much as it is emotional. Guardino switches between characters without breaking the narrative, shifting posture, voice and energy in rapid succession. The process, she said, took years to refine.
“If I keep breaking and not seamlessly going from grandma to dad, for example, it actually ruins the storytelling,” she said. “It took a bit of massaging. That was not overnight.”
At the center of “Italian Bred” is Guardino’s grandmother, a force of nature whose presence ultimately became the spine of the show.
“I didn’t realize it until I was about three years in,” Guardino said. “Everyone else’s grandma was sweet. Mine was heels, black sexy dresses, no rules. She lived by her own set of rules.”
Some of the real-life details, Guardino admits, were actually toned down: “I sugarcoated her for the special,” she laughed. “She was harder and rougher and scarier in real life … I didn’t want people to think I’m absolutely insane.”
Music also plays a key role in the special, with songs used for comedic and emotional beats (one standout moment: her dramatic car rendition of Styx’s “Come Sail Away”). There’s also one original song, “Change in Me,” written by Guardino and Emmy-nominated composer David Dabbon.
“That was the first original song I’ve ever written,” Guardino said. “I was nervous. I knew what I wanted to say. I just didn’t know how to do it in musical form.”
The song functions as an internal monologue, part of a larger structure where Guardino sings only as herself, not as a character.
“Every time I sing, I’m just me,” she said. “It’s my mental check-in of what’s happening in that moment.”
While the special represents a culmination, Guardino said it doesn’t feel like an ending.
“It’s sort of a closure of the first show called “Italian Bred,” and then it 100% feels like the beginning of what the next show will be,” Guardino said. The next chapter will explore marriage, parenting, adulthood and, of course, family characters: “a whole new level of drama and trauma.”
Even as her career takes her bicoastal between New York and Los Angeles, Staten Island remains central.
“I’m always back,” she said. “My family’s there. My friends are there. It’s always home.”
To keep up with Guardino, visit her website, listen to her podcast, see her on tour or follow her on Instagram (@candiceguardino).