Lenny Bruce is Back in Chicago Next Week

Acclaimed Dallas based stage and film actor Joey Folsom brings an innovative blend of stand-up comedy and theatrical performance to Judy's Beat Lounge at The Second City, August 24-26, with Sam Bobrick and Julie Stein's one man show, Lenny Bruce is Back.

Opening for Folsom is Chicago area comic Daryl Moon best known for his award winning web series with Kelsie Huff, The Open Mic. Having played to full comedy house crowds in Dallas and even in a burlesque house to kick off the tour, producers Bren Rapp and Folsom himself are taking this scripted theatrical piece into nontraditional venues in Dallas, Chicago and Los Angeles and to the production's final destination, The Untied Solo Festival in New York, taking advantage of the show's crossover appeal as a solo show piece about the father of counterculture comedy to go out and find new audiences for live theatre, where they are, in venues where they are engaged in viewing live entertainment and as an homage to the life and work of the subject, Lenny Bruce. Rapp and Folsom's novel approach to site-specific theatre will allow the production to play nationally at well known comedy venues such as The Second City in Chicago and iO West in Los Angeles with additional east coast venues being added for October.

The Show: Today's political climate in America has again brought the issues surrounding free speech, comedy as civil disobedience and satire as a vehicle for social change to the forefront of our cultural conversation. This makes the story of controversial comic and satirist Lenny Bruce not only remarkably relevant but one of timely historical precedent to be noted. Joey Folsom stars in this one man piece, that, while primarily comedic in design, profiles stand-up comedy's most infamous figure who challenged the perceptions of the purpose of comedy and is thought of by many as the satirical equivalent of a martyr, vilified in life and sainted in death for the path he paved for comedians and individuals alike regarding the freedom of speech. Written in the bluntly honest voice and provocatively notorious style of Lenny Bruce, Sam Bobrick and Julie Stein's Lenny Bruce is Back is based on the premise of Bruce coming back from the dead to deliver the stand-up set he never had the opportunity to give in life. Staged to capture the format and feel of stand-up comedy the show is biographical as well as culturally insightful, mixing the funny, with the poignant and the obscenely relevant in an entertaining hybrid uniquely suited for both comedy and theatrical audiences.