back in black
The comedian returns to the Great White Way
LEWIS Black is headed to Broadway with a new show — “Black to the Future” — that may turn out to be his farewell tour.
It’s the election that’s making him contemplate his future.
“What, really, is my job anymore?” he asks me. “You’ve already come up with 3,500 Trump jokes of your own. What am I supposed to give you? You don’t need me. I was in my underwear one morning, staring at the TV, and there was Donald Trump in the background on CNN, and Sarah Palin in the foreground. And I thought, ‘How am I supposed to be funnier than this?’”
“Black to the Future” will play Mondays at the Marquis Theatre from Sept. 12 through Oct. 24, when
Gloria Estefan’s “On Your Feet!” is dark.
“It would be strange for me to play my show simultaneously with hers,” Black says, “but there’s probably more money in it.”
One thing in Black’s future is a play, which he’s been writing on and off for a few years. Before he emerged as one of the sharpest stand-up comedians around, Black was a playwright. A graduate of the Yale School of Drama, he wanted a career in theater, not comedy clubs.
“In 1981, I had a play at [off-Broadway’s] Ensemble Studio Theatre. Mark
Linn-Baker and Teri Garr were in it. Then I had a play done at Sam Shepard’s Magic Theatre, and a review came out that said, ‘No one in the state of California should ever produce a play by Lewis Black.’”
Still, he persevered. He wrote a musical, “The Czar of Rock and Roll,” with the late Rusty Magee. They hung out at a bar every night after rehearsal and became friendly with the bartender. She’d never been to the theater, so Black invited her to their show.
“She sat behind two critics, and I watched her reaction,” he says. “The second act was really doing well. And then she opened her mouth and threw up. I turned to Rusty and I said, ‘That’s our career in the theater.’ So I went across town to see if I could work at this comedy club. They gave me a spot, and in one week I made as much money as I did working three years on the musical. Ball game’s over!”