Denny Love has a photo on a phone of himself standing outside Comedy on State in July 2013. He posted it on Facebook with the caption: “Catch me here tonight. $2.”
It was an open mic night at the venerable comedy club, and his first try at stand-up comedy.
Later this month, he’ll take that same stage for the first time since then, to launch his own 44-city, nine-month tour as headliner.
“I could not start this tour without starting in Madison. I just … it is imperative,” he said in an interview Wednesday. “The most important thing to me was to start in my city, to really kick off the tour right, get back to my old stomping grounds, and get that energy underneath me to really soar into the rest of the tour… I really fought to have the very first tour date be Madison, because I can’t do that tour without the support of my city. it really does feel like a homecoming.”
He’s hoping that support can propel him onto a project the scope of which he doesn’t even fully grasp.
“When I decided to do a tour, I wanted to do a big tour,” he said. “It’s a huge undertaking… embarking on a journey that is insane for any comedian — to headline a tour across the country … I don’t think I even understand how big of an undertaking this is, which is why I wouldn’t even dare start something crazy like this without touching my hometown first. I need that belief re-embedded in my system that what I’m doing is not insane.”
The actor and comedian is known better to his native South Side as Madison West grad and Boys and Girls Club of Dane County 2012 Youth of the Year Denzel Irby. Since heading to Hollywood in 2017, he’s had a major ensemble role in the 2019 Hulu series Looking for Alaska, a two-season arc in Taylor Sheridan’s Mayor of Kingstown, a number of movie and television roles, and toured as an opener for big-name comedians like Chris D’Elia.
But what’s really put him on the map recently is The Kevin Langue Show on YouTube. He’s one of five comedians who form a panel on the “guessing game” format show.
“It’s not a traditional way of approaching the entertainment industry, but it really has catapulted my career,” Love said.
It might not be traditional, but it’s of the moment: two of this summer’s hottest movies – Backrooms and Obsession – came from filmmakers who started on YouTube.
The show has more than five million subscribers, and every episode gets about two million views. A live version of the show recently sold out a 17-stop tour, starting at the Netflix is a Joke Festival. Love said the nature of the show’s cast helped it translate from YouTube to the stage.
“It’s just something that isn’t really happening in the YouTube space,” he said. “You don’t typically have a bunch of content creators who are also live performers.”
Love said that being part of the show for the last few years has pushed Love’s social media following past a million.
All of that has gotten him enough juice in the industry to headline his own tour. Getting the reps in over the last few years has him ready to put on a good show in all of those cities.
“I’ve essentially toured all of America already, working on my craft, working on my set. I’ve gotten the tutelage of one of the biggest comedians in the game, performed for hundreds of thousands of people around the country. It’s just been consistency, honestly,” he said. “I’ve performed almost every weekend for the past three years straight.”
He said traveling the country and performing in very different places has helped him find common ground.
“I would characterize my act as impactful. I’m talking about real stuff,” he said. “I’m not afraid to be unabashedly raw. I’m bringing back that Def Jam style of comedy, where I’m trying to make you laugh so hard you’re on the floor. I’m not pulling any punches.”
But in the end, it’s all about bringing people together.
“My goal is to unite everyone through laughter, no matter what our differences are,” he said. “Whether it’s political beliefs, religious beliefs, racial beliefs. The goal is that by the end of the night, everyone recognizes we all laugh at the same (stuff). That’s what my whole set is about, trying to bridge the gap.”
You can also expect him to engage with the audience.
“I love crowd work moments — a lot of my most viral clips are interacting with the crowd,” he said. “In Madison we have a lot of characters, so I’m pretty sure we’re going to have a lot of viral moments.”
The Show Love Tour kicks off August 28 – 30, with five shows in Madison. Tickets are available here for $36-$71.
