Comedian Loni Love’s “Live, Love, Laugh” tour comes to Richmond Nov. 8 to 11. Photo courtsey LEG Management
A former electrical engineer with Xerox, Loni Love has certainly kept busy since deciding to devote herself to comedy. The 39-year-old stand-up comic made it to the finals of Star Search in 2003, and since then she has appeared on everything from Phineas and Ferb to Chelsea Lately, for which she's a regular panelist, offering her take on the news of the day. Alongside the TV appearances is a schedule of nearly constant touring, including a series of shows from Nov. 8 to 11 at Richmond Funny Bone.
RM: Why did you decide to pursue comedy?
LL: Because I was a bad electrical engineer.
RM: Why do you think there are more males in stand-up comedy than females?
LL: You have to spend time on the road, and it's a lot harder for a female to spend time on the road if they're dealing with relationships or if they have a child.
RM: Do you struggle with being on the road so much?
LL: It's not a struggle. It's an inconvenience, but that's what you have to do to get your name out there. People see you on TV, and they want to see you live. It gives you an extension. What you see on TV is just a short synopsis of who I am; it's not the whole thing. … If you're going to call yourself a stand-up, you have to do the road.
RM: You do a lot of television along with your stand-up comedy — do you prefer one over the other?
LL: Not really. It's two different types of things. When you do television, you get your message out to a mass amount of people in a short amount of time. When it comes to actual live shows, it's a whole different type of energy.
RM: Where do you get inspiration for new material?
LL: I like reading a lot. A lot of comedians don't read enough, and that's why we all sound the same sometimes. I try to read. I get my inspiration from observing people and events. I look at the news a lot and
I give my opinion about that. I try to ... give you just a little bit of what's going on in the news that's different.
RM: What are you reading now?
LL: I'm reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. It's a fascinating book about a woman who, doctors back in the day took her cells and they stored them, and it's a lot of stuff that came out of it, but it's a fascinating book. It's not a medical book. It's actually a book about what they did with the cells and how her family found out about it.
Quick Takes
- Love, who grew up in a Detroit housing project, worked on a GM assembly line in high school.
- While attending Prairie View A&M University in Texas, Love first tried her hand at stand-up comedy.
- Love is a member of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority.
