Submitted photo Warren native Larry Beyah returns to the area for shows Friday and Saturday at the Funny Farm Comedy Club.

Releasing a new hour of material every two or three years would be considered prolific for most standup comedians.

Warren native Larry Beyah played the Funny Farm Comedy Club last July and filmed an 85-minute standup special called “I Do Not Make the Rules.” It can be seen on YouTube.

He’ll be back there for two shows this weekend, and Beyah is promising all-new material, and not just since July.

“On Friday night, I’m going to be doing one different hour, and then on Saturday night, I’m gonna do a whole different hour, and it’s gonna be different than all of the material I did the first time I came,” Beyah said. “Having done the first special, you leave so many jewels on the table — ‘Oh no, I could have put that in. I should have put that in.’ I could have gone on for three hours that first night.”

Beyah joined the U.S. Air Force after graduating from Warren Western Reserve High School in 1986. He started pursuing standup comedy after he was discharged and pursuing a bachelor’s degree at Morehouse College and a master’s degree from Temple University.

He currently calls Greenwich, Conn., home — and some of his material deals with being the only African-American in his neighborhood — but he’s lived on both coasts and traveled everywhere in between and overseas as a performer. The universality he sees in people everywhere colors his comedy.

“I don’t divide comedy into Republicans or Democrats or short or tall or men or women,” he said. “My style of comedy comes from a place of pure love that everybody is one. I can talk about Jewish people, and I can talk about Italians. I can talk about black, I can talk about white. I can talk about Irish, and I can talk about Asian, because I know the culture. I know the people. These are people that I’ve sat with, I’ve eaten with.”

While Beyah is affiliated with Republican politics — he’s appeared at events for Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and the Trumbull County Republican Women’s Club will be collecting donations at this weekend’s shows — he said he expects a diverse audience politically and ethnically, and he sees comedy as a way to bridge those divides.

“We’re essential workers,” Beyah said. “I always tell people, if you can laugh at something, the endorphins are happening, and science has shown that endorphins are the thing that helps the brain and your body heal, and that’s what we’re doing.”

He’s taken his own advice when it comes to the healing power of laughter. Beyah was diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer. He said his prognosis has improved, but he hasn’t “rung the bell” yet that he’s cancer-free. Laughter, along with more traditional medical treatments, have helped him persevere.

“The medication that I’m on gives me double hot flashes,” Beyah said. “I told the doc, ‘I came in here with prostate cancer, but I’m leaving with menopause.’ Who knew that menopause was a cure for cancer? You always have to find the funny in something.”

Beyah described himself as a class clown growing up, making his friends laugh at school, but he also took comedy seriously and his family encouraged those pursuits, particularly his father, Myron Beyah, who died in 2021.

“Most parents are steering their children away from the arts,” he said. “My dad steered me toward the arts.”

His father was an electrical contractor, and he’d take his son with him to job sites. When Beyah was competing in the spelling bee, he’d quiz him on his spelling words on the drive to and from those jobs. Other times, they’d talk comedy. On the job site, when the workers were on a break, Beyah would do bits for them, and his father, who loved comedians like Rodney Dangerfield and Bernie Mac, would offer critiques on how to improve the jokes.

Beyah is a strong believer in tailoring one’s act to the audience. He called New York the place to be if you want to make it in standup comedy, but too many comedians spend too much time in New York, and they struggle when they venture out to other parts of the country.

“You come to Ohio, nobody cares about your subway jokes, because there’s no subway here,” he said.

When he’s doing a show somewhere he’s never been before, he tries to get to town early and do some “recon” on the area that he can weave into his act. Beyah has a lifetime of recon to draw from this weekend.

“I talk about my paper route,” Beyah said. “I talk about my Italian connections here, I talk about the Cafaro family. I talk about the DeBartolo family. I talk about what it was like growing up in Warren with General Motors and Packard. I talk about Warren Western Reserve versus Harding, the rivalries. But I make it funny, because it is funny, especially when I come back to Warren and I see Warren differently now.”

If you go …

WHO: Larry Beyah

WHEN: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday

WHERE: Funny Farm Comedy Club, 1201 Youngstown-Warren Road, Niles

HOW MUCH: Tickets are $25 reserved and $22.50 general admission and are available online at funnyfarmcomedyclub.com and by calling 330-759-4242.