Josué “Comedy” Torres fulfills his call to unite the family through comedy

“It’s incredible, but true. In Lares I visited a church where they did a play every Holy Week and my brother was part of the group that was doing theater. He committed to the church to do the work on Holy Friday and Saturday. They opened a function on Sunday, but my brother was working that day. When I told the person in charge that he couldn’t do the play on Sunday, that person looked at me and said, ‘Do you dare to do it?’ Well, I had gone to some rehearsals with my brother. I replied, ‘I dare’. That was from today to tomorrow and I remember that, halfway through the play, I obviously forgot the script because I had only prepared for one day and I started improvising. People began to laugh a lot and because of things in life, in that church service there was a producer of Wapa TV who saw me and approached the end“, he said about that moment, where he told him that if one day he found out about an opportunity, he was going to call him.

A year later he received the call to audition for said television channel and they gave him the opportunity. “That’s how I started in professional comedy, for a church play,” said the artist, who is also a musician and as a child became part of a theater group in Ohio, in a summer program, so He has always been passionate about the arts since he was a child.

He enjoyed working on television programs such as “Mediodía Puerto Rico”, joining “Susa y Epifanio”, playing his nephew, being part of the first season of “El Remix”, and “Gana con Ganas”. He even went so far as to do comedy for adults in 2012. However, due to personal convictions, he preferred to take another route.

“I am a person of faith, I wanted to start doing comedy for the whole family. There I leave what is the traditional medium, I start doing family comedy. I believe that we all have a purpose in life and I always knew that, doing comedy for adults, I was a little far from my purpose. I think my calling in life is to unite the family, to be able to see children laugh with their parents and to be able to take your mother to the theater. That’s when I made the personal decision,” she shared.

Pursue healthy and familiar humor

The vast majority of existing “stand up comedy” proposals are risqué, exclusive for adults, so Josué understands that this has created a need for “healthy humor.”

“I was talking to my work team that the Puerto Rico Coliseum His name is José Miguel, ‘Don Cholito’, who was someone who dedicated his career to healthy entertainment. Now that I have the opportunity, January 14, at 6:00 pm to present my show there, Well, I feel that this legacy must be continued and I feel that there was a necessary void of being able to unite the family with comedy,” he highlighted.

While it is true that Josué has performed in countless theaters in Puerto Rico, this would be the first time he performs in the so-called “Choliseo.” where he will go with his show “I am a strawberry dad”, but which goes under the name “De Lares para el Choli”.

“We want to show that dreams come true, that no matter where you are from, if you have talent and dream big and work consistently, it can be achieved. After doing my show, ‘My mother-in-law doesn’t leave me’ in Puerto Rico, which we did more than 50 performances on the island, with the theaters filled to capacity, we understood that it was a good time to take that step with this show that has not come to Puerto Rico and, to our surprise, the first two days thousands of people already have their tickets, so we are very excited,” he said about the production, which will be directed by Agustin Rosario.

Likewise, he does not deny that looking at that scenario makes him scared, accompanied by a mix of emotions.

“As we say in Lares, I’m very scared, it’s a lot of emotion. I want to keep my heart humble within this process because I never want this to be seen as personal greatness. I believe that this is a blessing from heaven and although it is something big, we can all achieve beautiful things in our lives. So I have a lot of emotion, a lot of happiness. “Sometimes I stop, I look at the coliseum, we park there, tears come to my eyes and we continue working.” he added.

According to the comedian, the show will have an “opening” by the actress and comedian Janibeth Santiagowho in addition to standing out as a “stand up comedian”, is a master of improvisation.

“She will come out earlier, do her routine and warm up the audience, do dynamics with the audience. Then I introduce myself in my stand up. I have music elements, visual elements, videos, photos, it’s very interactive. But, it is a ‘stand up comedy’ that with the stories is enough to make you die of laughter”advancement.

What does it mean to be a strawberry dad?

“A strawberry dad is a totally different man from what your mother expects when you are born as a gentleman who says, ‘look, now we have a man in the house who can help me, with the yard, with the car when it breaks down, who You can paint the house.’ Well no, I don’t have any of those skills, I can cook, I can help my wife paint her nails, those little things like that, but when I become a dad, well I realize that someone has to set up the crib, someone has He has to ride his toy, someone has to teach the baby to defend himself. And I realized that I am a strawberry dad and that I am going to need help in many areas,” he explained about all those stories, which he began to write and which has already presented more than 30 performances in the United States.

Intentionally, he said that thanks to public relations work, Latinos living on American soil were made aware that “Josué Comedy” exists. Therefore, he points out that thousands of people have laughed non-stop at this show, and Puerto Rico will be the closing one. “I can guarantee you that it is the best one I have done so far and ‘My mother-in-law won’t let me’ was a shock, I thought it was going to be very difficult to overcome it, and thank God we did it with this one,” he added.

From lemons he made lemonade

While living on the island, one of his great challenges as a family comedian was finding a producer. However, upon seeing that people in Puerto Rico were not investing in that, he decided to open his production business, obtained the license and made a living producing family comedy events.

“When Hurricane Maria hit, obviously all the theaters were closed. I started visiting the state of Florida to try to produce there and little by little it worked for me. I established my company there until the moment came that I identified with my wife, that in order to be there and grow our business, because thank God in Puerto Rico we had something quite stable with the audience, it was better to move. We made the move and now we are between there and here, because I spend half the year in Puerto Rico, basically. So thank God, we had that opportunity, we grabbed those lemons, we made lemonade and we’re doing pretty well,” she said.

For now, he says that he and his work team have many ideas, among them is that they would like to make a stand-up special for a streaming platform. While he finishes this tour, he is already writing the next one.

“I speak English, thank God, so we have plans to do that ‘crossover’ at some point with a comedy in English. So there is a lot of dream, many goals, one step at a time, enjoying this process and leaving a good taste so that all of Puerto Rico knows that there is a good family comedy option,” he pointed out.