Lance Crouther

Lance Crouther began his career in comedy while a teenager in high school, in Chicago, already touring comedy clubs and colleges, performing stand-up. From there, he took his natural comedic ability to Los Angeles and began to find work writing and performing on television. His first on-screen gig wasn't a comedy role however, but an acting job on the dramatic anthology series "Lifestories," playing a homeless man. His first regular writing gig came in 1993, on the stand-up comedy program "Comic Justice." In 1997, he landed jobs writing for the sitcom "The Gregory Hines Show," as well as for comedian Chris Rock's self-titled comedy talk show, where he also would occasionally perform in various skits. For his work on "The Chris Rock Show," he was awarded an Emmy, which led to lots of work rolling in. In 2001, he played the title role in the comedy feature "Pootie Tang," which was based on a character he had first introduced in a sketch on "The Chris Rock Show." That same year, he also began working for the variety program "The Wayne Brady Show," and remained there for two years. In 2003, he started writing for another sitcom, "Wanda at Large," which starred Wanda Sykes and in 2004, he created another sitcom for her, which only lasted six episodes. He later wrote for programs such as "Real Time with Bill Maher" and the talk show "Lopez Tonight," where he took on the position of head writer.