After 500 days of not doing a show, Lewis Black is ready to hit the road and get back on tour. He will be performing at the Turlock Community Theatre on Sunday, Feb. 20 at 7:30 p.m. He is known for his comedic yelling or rants and has been christened “the King of the Rant.”
The locals have a chance to personalize the show by submitting a rant on lewisblack.com that he will read at the end of the show which he calls the “Rant is Due” for those that want to express whatever is on their minds. He tries to read as many as he can that are funny and that fit. The livestreams from each show are posted on his website.
“I do the show and then I do 15 to 25 minutes of reading rants that were written by the audience,” added Black. “It is an audience written show. So I am coming to Turlock if the folks in Turlock are coming to the show write a rant and chances are I will read it and if you live around Turlock and you can’t be there you can still send it in. I basically try to do it about the city, the region, or the state. It is a show about where I am.”
Fans know what to expect at his shows but for those that do not Black noted that they can look him up. He was recently on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and has been on several television shows and in films. In the Pixar film Inside Out he was the voice of Anger.
“It has been good,” said Lewis about his career and the variety of projects he has been involved with. “I have been lucky. I like something about all of it. Everything I have done I have really loved. I didn’t expect to be able to do it. I started out as a playwright; I certainly did not expect to be acting.”
Black turns stupidity that makes him angry into comedy or he may just read a headline that makes the audience laugh and these days he shared that it has become fairly easy to come up with material as most of it is being written for him.
He said, “Before I had to search and do some work like go to the second paragraph but now they put it right out there. As I kept saying along the way it is hard to satirize what is already satiric. I am funny when I am angry. It took me a long time to figure that out because anger does not seem to be something you do to be funny but it worked.”
Black was born in Washington D.C. and fell in love with theatre at a young age, which led him to pursue drama in school. During his time at the University of North Carolina, Black got into stand-up comedy and has continued to do so ever since.
“If you have a problem with a joke, if it is something that is going to irritate you or upset you, don’t come,” remarked Black. “I did not get into this business to upset people. I got into this business so that people could enjoy themselves.”