It’s been a little while since Ms. Pat took the stage at a Boston comedy club. But, while she is looking forward to returning to the city in general, she has bigger fish to fry this time around – and not just for the lobster rolls she’s anticipating.
With excitement to walk the same stage as Bill Burr, Joe Rogan, Bert Kreischer and so many others that she respects as killers of the craft, Ms. Pat makes her way to The Wilbur for the very first time on Saturday (May 21). Working in tandem with that excitement is the joy she’s finding in discovering her ability to adapt in her writing process, which has resulted in a record turnaround of a substantial amount of material, and she’s looking forward to delivering what she has so far to a Boston crowd.
“I’m used to turning over a new hour every 15 months or so, but when my special went to Netflix, the scary thing I thought about was how you can always turn over hours, and then revisit them, but after I recorded it, I don’t touch it anymore,” Pat tells Vanyaland. “I literally started from scratch on this new hour, which is really scary for me, but a friend of mine reminded me that I always have something to talk about, and sure enough, within two months, I had 45 decent minutes.”
With a brand new hour in the works following the release of her latest special, Y’all Wanna Hear Something Crazy?, which landed in Netflix in January, Ms. Pat is also balancing the craziness of writing the next season of her eponymous BET show, The Ms. Pat Show. Having gotten used to a certain creative process over the course of her 20-year comedy career, there’s certainly a bit more speed as to which she’s found herself writing and creating, and while it might sound like a lot to handle, Ms. Pat is up for the challenge of keeping things fresh between the two mediums.
“To try and create a whole new hour that is totally separate from a TV show takes a lot of staying up late at night,” says Pat. “I can look at a situation during the day, and then write a bit about it on stage later that night, but now, I have to figure out whether it’ll belong to an episode of the show, or if it belongs on the stage. That’s the struggle I have right now, because I don’t want to be telling jokes on stage, and then have you hear that same exact joke on TV.”
Where her writing for stage and screen differ, her latest batch of stand-up continues to touch on the deeper subjects of her life, and she’s not shying away from the ugly details. Following the credo she’s shared with her fans every night, Ms. Pat continues to be the living example of “if you can laugh at the darkest things in your life, then you have control,” and while she’s just trying to speak her truth and reveal a little bit more of Oz with every story of hardship and triumph, her latest offering wastes no time in getting down to the nitty gritty.
“I’m still just trying to pick stories out of my life, and I try to develop that character as much as I can onstage so people can continue to come into my world,” says the Atlanta native. “In my special, I talked a lot about my momma, but this time around, I’m starting to talk about the first time I met my real daddy, and all the things we went through in our relationship and how we grew as father and daughter, which is really dark but also really funny.”
For Ms. Pat, the creative drive to keep going simply comes from the desire to be open and honest with her crowd, and feeling the appreciation, connection and understanding in the room. By no means is she a counselor or therapist, as she’s had to reiterate over the years, but her own therapy comes while onstage, and she’s fully aware that her ability to be brave in the spotlight and speak from her experiences and her truth helps others get through their own trials.
She may not set out to write material with mindset of moving people, but the fact that the stories she shares about herself have the tendency to resonate with her audience night after night remains special for Ms. Pat, and she can’t wait to get back to Boston again — even if she’s not a fan of some key elements of the city’s makeup.
“I may not like Boston when it gets cold, and I don’t like your New England Patriots, but I do love Boston, and I can’t wait to take in the city again, because it’s just such a nice place to visit.”
MS. PAT :: Saturday, May 21 at The Wilbur Theatre, 246 Tremont St. in Boston, MA :: 7 p.m., $25 to $35 :: Wilbur event page :: Advance tickets