Comedian Jim Breuer isn't afraid to broach sensitive topics in upcoming show at The Lincoln

Mar. 27—Jim Breuer doesn't want you to be afraid. He wants you to come out and enjoy live stand-up comedy in a traditional theater setting — especially now that The Lincoln is set to reopen with his March 30 shows.

Breuer believes the "most dangerous thing a government can tell society" is to stay away from one another, and ever since he started sharing this sentiment on tour, he's found most audiences agree.

"It's very refreshing to know there are so many people on the same page, but they're not allowed to have a voice about it, so I say it for them," he said. "I'm not a political man in any way — never have been — but I point out common sense and very relatable things related to family and life circumstances ... and everyone is on the same page."

Breuer came to national attention as a cast member on "Saturday Night Live" from 1995 to 1998 and for playing Brian in the 1998 cult classic "Half Baked."

Most recently, Breuer's comedy album, "Jim Breuer: Live from Portland," was released in 2019 and reached No. 1 on the iTunes comedy chart. When he's not performing live, he's making Facebook video recaps of baseball games that have been featured on the MLB Network and ESPN SportsCenter.

When the COVID-19 pandemic shut theaters down in March 2020, Breuer was in the middle of a national tour that screeched to a sudden halt. He took the rest of the spring and entire summer off from comedy and used the forced hiatus as a chance to spend quality time with close friends and family.

In October 2020, he booked a 16-week-long stint at a comedy club in his native New Jersey that had pitched a tent onsite to stay in business. Doing outdoor gigs wasn't ideal for Breuer, who found it more challenging to connect with the crowd when they were sitting so much farther away than normal, but he was happy to be in front of an in-person audience again.

And unlike some of his colleagues in the comedy world, he had no intention of creating a set that would avoid the sensitive topics everyone's been pondering this year and last.

"My whole life has been like, 'Let's talk about the elephant in the room, let's not pretend something doesn't exist when it's staring us all in the face,'" he said. "I enjoy bringing up things where everyone else goes 'Are we allowed to talk about this or allowed to laugh about this?' By the end, we're howling with laughter ... that's part of the healing process that everyone needs."

In February, Breuer kicked off his first tour in nearly a year. He said crowds throughout Florida, Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania have enjoyed laughing with him, especially because his approach to every performance has been to make jokes about the pandemic for the first 15 or so minutes and then go into material about other topics, such as his wife, family and health.

Breuer doesn't like to hold onto old material, so he's constantly writing new jokes and adapting his set to what's happening around him. COVID-19 hasn't changed his approach to comedy at all, he said, and especially because he's been in the business for decades, he doesn't plan on changing his approach to joke writing.

He's thankful for the owners of venues such as The Lincoln, who are offering live entertainment to their communities right now, because he said that's exactly what everyone needs: a way to be together. That's what's most healthy for humanity.

"They're going to laugh their asses off," he predicted of his Cheyenne audiences. "This is going to be the cheapest therapy session anyone's ever had in their life. And you're not going to have to see me again next week. It will last for quite a long time."

Niki Kottmann is the Wyoming Tribune Eagle's features editor. She can be reached at nkottmann@wyomingnews.com or 307-633-3135. Follow her on Twitter at @niki_mariee.