The first time Brad Williams was on stage telling jokes, it was not as part of an open mic night. He had gone with friends to see comedian Carlos Mencia, who started making jokes about little people. Williams is a dwarf, and no one around him was laughing. “What? Is one of them here?” Mencia asked. Williams went up on stage and wound up supplying funny answers to Mencia’s questions. “The first time I got a laugh, I was hooked,” Williams says. Mencia eventually hired him to be his permanent opener on the road. That resulted in Williams phoning his parents to tell them he was dropping out of the University of Southern California. “My plan is to get so rich and so famous that someone says, ‘Here. Here’s an honorary degree.’”
Showtimes Thursday-Sunday. $15-$17. Funny Bone on the Levee, Newport on the Levee, Newport, Ky., 859-957-2000, funnyboneonthelevee.com.
This article appears in Apr 23-29, 2014.
