Comedian Lewis Black is known for ranting about, well, everything, and that trait was in its full glory when he had a guest spot on the popular CBS comedy Big Bang Theory. On the show, he plays Professor Crawley, an entomologist at the university where the characters work. They seek out his expertise to solve a dispute about the species of the cricket they caught. When they find him, he is in the process of moving out of his lab because the university has cut his funding. The plot is the perfect showcase for Black's ranting, and the guest spot must have worked as the sitcom hit a series high in viewership. The episode was filmed in August, and Black posted a picture of him with the cast on his website. It isn't the first show he has guest starred on, as he has also appeared on shows like Law & Order: SVU and Mad About You.
Black has other important dates coming up in addition to his popular standup act. He is set to perform on October 13 as a celebration of Punchline Magazine's fourth anniversary. He will be joined by other top names in comedy like Janeane Garofalo, Todd Barry, Christian Finnegan, Ted Alexandro, Pete Dominick and Robert Hawkins. The day after, he will head to Sag Harbor to perform a fundraiser at the Bay Street Theatre, as the theatre has been suffering for funding because of the economy. Prior to both of those performances, his film Stark Raving Black will hit theaters on October 8. Stark Raving Black is an 80-minute film featuring the best from his recent standup acts at the Fillmore Theatre in Detroit. It was directed by Adam Dublin and produced by Jack Gulick. Of course, his fans have found seeing him live is even better, and Lewis Black tickets are available online.
Lewis Black isn't faking his sharp wit on stage. He was born in Washington, D.C. and grew up in Maryland. Had a teacher as a mother and an engineer as a father who raised him to highly value education. He graduated in the top of his class in high school, and he was already hooked on theater by the time he reached his teens. He earned a degree from the University of North Carolina, where he also discovered stand-up comedy. He went on to earn a Master's degree in drama from Yale.
Living in New York City, Black first focused on theater and was the resident playwright at a local theater. Holding that position also had him emceeing every show, building his stand-up ability. In the late 1980s, Black decided to pursue comedy full time. Black leapt to mainstream fame when he took a reoccurring spot on The Daily Show in 1996. The segment was called Back in Black, and it allowed him to rage about any subject that struck his fancy. It was so popular that Black was asked to create comedy specials for television, and he won a Best Male Stand-Up award at the American Comedy Awards in 2001.
The awards continued as Black started releasing albums. In 2006, Luther Burbank Performing Arts Center Blues earned him a Grammy nomination, and he won a Grammy the following year for The Carnegie Hall Performance. His talent also extended to print as both of his books-2005's Nothing's Sacred and 2008's Me of Little Faith-were both best sellers. Over his long career, Black has also appeared in many films like Accepted, Man of the Year and Unaccompanied Minors.
