When Chris Teicheira started putting together comedy shows in Manteca, he was hoping that he could bring high-quality comedians to his hometown so that people wouldn’t have to go out of town for a good time.
And he may have outdone himself for his upcoming show at String’s on Saturday, Jan. 20, by booking two of Northern California’s most accomplished and sought-after comics on the same card.
Kabir “Kabeezy” Singh, the winner of the 2015 San Francisco International Comedy Competition, and Kiry Shabazz, who was just recently selected as the winner of the 2017 StandUp NBC Competition, will be bringing their comedic talents to the Central Valley in what Teicheira says may be the most stacked comedy show that he has ever had the pleasure of putting together.
The show is being presented by the Deaf Puppies – the crew of comics and friends that Teicheira belongs to, and the name that he’s planning on putting on the comedy club that he’s looking at opening near Bass Pro Shops.
“This is hands down the best show that I’ve ever put together here in Manteca,” Teicheira said. “I mean, the guy who is featuring just landed a development deal with NBC – that’s about as good as you can get.
“So it’s kind of like steak and lobster – it’s great.”
To put the credentials of the comics into perspective, Singh managed to win the same comedy competition that both Robin Williams and Ellen DeGeneres finished second in. Previous winners include Dana Carvey, Will Durst, Doug Standhope and Sinbad.
Robert Duchaine, whom Teicheira has hosted at one of his Manteca shows, finished, second as well, as did actor Kevin Pollak and world-famous comics Dane Cook and Marc Maron.
And Shabazz, who is essentially opening for Singh, was awarded the same NBC honors previously bestowed upon W. Kamau Bell – who has his own show on CNN – and Hasan Minhaj, who had a role on the Daily Show and emceed the first White House Correspondent’s Dinner of Donald Trump’s Presidency.
“I wanted to bring people that I knew were funny when I started doing this because I wanted people from Manteca to see the comics that tend to perform nearby but not necessarily here,” Teicheira said. “But I think I may have outdone myself this time around.”
According to Teicheira, sometime this week he’s planning on sitting down with Manteca Mayor Steve DeBrum to talk about his plans to open the Deaf Puppy Comedy Club somewhere, he hopes near Bass Pro Shops so that those attending shows can enjoy dinner and entertainment within the same center.
He isn’t sure yet how it would work, but he said he wants to create a venue that can double as a performance space so that musicians and other artists would have somewhere locally that they could perform as well.
“It’s good to see the ball starting to get rolling on that,” Teicheira said. “I’m going to keep doing this – putting shows together – until they’ll be held at the comedy club itself.
“We’ve got a pretty good thing going where some of the guys have events on other nights of the week leading up to Saturday, so part of how we’re able to get these guys is by telling them they can come out here and perform for basically the whole week. It’s worked out well so far, and I think that the people of Manteca are in for a treat this weekend.”
Tickets for the show are $10 and can be purchased in advance by visiting String’s Bar and Grill, located at 680 N. Main Street, during business hours. The show is set to begin at 8 p.m., and will be hosted by Teicheira.

To contact reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com or call 209.249.3544.