Acclaimed comedian Marlon Wayans is returning to Cleveland for a three-night run at the recently rebranded Cleveland Funny Bone Comedy Club & Restaurant (formerly Cleveland Improv) from July 11 – 13!
Marlon’s comedic talents are undeniable. Heck, the name Wayans is synonymous with comedy! — It’s hard to keep up with all the branches of the hilarious family tree.
Wayans starred with his brother Shawn Wayans on The WB’s “The Wayans Bros.” which was the highest-rated comedy on the network and continues to air in syndication. He has appeared on several popular television programs, including Fox’s “In Living Color,” Adult Swim’s “Children’s Hospital,” and BET’s “Second Generation Wayans.”
Marlon’s latest comedy special, “Good Grief,” premiered in June 2024 on Amazon Prime Video, hit #1 on the streaming platform in its first week. His other critically acclaimed #1 comedy specials include “Woke-ish” on Netflix and “God Loves Me,” “You Know What It Is” and “Marlon Wayans Presents: The Headliners” on HBO Max.
Wayans showed himself to be a multitasker when he connected with CleveRock via Zoom from his Los Angeles home. At the start of the interview, he was attending to the needs of his one-year-old child, which did not cease for the duration of the interview.
Wayans seemed far more comfortable than most at this interviewer getting a glimpse into his personal life. Coming from a famous family in the public eye for most of his adult life, this is nothing new for him.
The upcoming Cleveland dates on his calendar might not excite him from a weather standpoint, but Marlon looks forward to the oft-unpredictable Cleveland comedy fans.
“I’m always on the stage. It doesn’t matter where I’m at. They all start blending in after a minute. You forget where you’re at, and the only thing that identifies you is the crowd,” Wayans said. “To me, it’s like there’s a vibe, right? There’s a vibe and an energy like no other crowd from no other city. And that goes for any big city that you go to. If I close my eyes and I did my set, I know Cleveland, y’all are all kinds of temperatures. The audience is the weather. They may be warm, you may have hecklers, you may have people that want to yell, and that’s why y’all make good sports fans. I think passionate. I could close my eyes. I know when I’m in Baltimore. I can feel when I’m in New York. And I think that that’s really from time spent on stage and time traveling. And it’s one of the reasons why I love the art of standup comedy. They get to know me more than I get to know their vibes, their energies, and their opinions, but not individually. I can take a sense of what’s going on. You know what I mean? Whether they’re conservative or free-spirited, or I could just feel about the push and pull and the tug when you’re doing your set and feel. And to me, it doesn’t matter because I could get you on my side and bury you later. I could piss you off, and it makes you feel bad and go, ‘Wow. Oh, that was tricky.’ It doesn’t matter to me. I know how to sing my song, and I can sing ’em backward.”
When he writes his standup, Marlon’s approach is a tad unorthodox. It’s what sets him apart from other comics.
“I don’t sit down and write my sets. I have thoughts or a premise in my head. And then I go on stage with that audience and I dare to write in front of them,” he revealed. “Little by little, what happens is over the course of maybe a few weeks, I have a whole hour. But I dare myself to write in front of them. I don’t want to sit down and write it up. I want to feel it. You know what I mean? It’s like Miles Davis going up there and just, all right, ‘My Funny Valentine,’ okay, I’m going to play it in that key, but I’m going to create a whole new song. But I like these keys. I like the progression. And you go out and just improvise, and you sink or swim. There’s no bad note. You’re the bad note or off note. It’s still funny. Sometimes you get a, ‘ooh,’ some comedians get scared of the ‘Ooh,’ I hear ‘Ooh.’ I’m like, okay, you’re listening. You’re feeling some type of way. Alright, let’s keep going here, and I’ll keep going until I do what I strike oil. Keep digging until I strike oil.”
Comedians have to toe the line between expressing their art and the risks of being canceled.
“It’s sink or swim, every joke. It’s not even like sink or swim, every set. It’s everything you say: you sink, or you swim. It’s like surfing. You don’t know where the wave is coming from. You don’t know how big it is. You don’t know when you’re going to wipe out, but you just enjoy the rod, stay on your feet, and before you know it, you’re riding the biggest waves, and the crowd will always be the biggest wave,” Wayans said. “And I think it’s allowed me to become a better communicator, allows me to process my thoughts a lot faster, but with a lot more respect for the reaction of what I’m going to get from people. From what I initially feel. It’s unfair for me to force my opinions, my thoughts on a crowd full of people. All I can do is take them through my experience and allow them through the experience to make their own process their own, put themselves in my position. What would you do? And I think that, I don’t know, it’s so hard. It’s threading the needle every day, man. It’s tight walking with a pool of sharks beneath you. But I love it. I don’t do anything else.“
Wayans brought his child into the ZOOM shot and made an introduction. If history repeats itself, this youngster will have some media deals soon! Naturally, the final question was whether parent life changed his role as a comedian.
“Absolutely not! And I tell my kids, ‘I’m a comedian first; father second,'” Wayans said. “I’ve always been a fun dad. There’s nothing. If y’all do something stupid, expect me to put it on stage. I have a first look deal at your life, so you do something. Even if it’s not stupid, I think my children have made me a better artist. They’ve made me a more sensitive and respectful artist because you can’t just say stuff. It has to have goodness. That has to be. That’s the fabric. There has to be goodness. And then you could be silly. You could be outrageous, but I think they know their dad. Your kids sacrifice for you because you have to be gone every weekend. You have to go on these long road trips, and there are basketball games you’re going to miss. And there are things that you can’t be as present. And so I appreciate my children for allowing me to be the artist I am because I love this journey. I love this craft. And I’d be unhappy in my life if I wasn’t able to pursue it.”
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