Sat. Oct. 20  

 Lisa Lampanelli bills herself as the new Queen of Mean, and when she’s on stage the 49-year-old, plus-sized comic takes no prisoners. Everyone is fair game for her X-rated strafing - no matter what your race, gender, sexual orientation, age, weight or handicap. A regular on Howard Stern’s show, she’s up there with similarly fearless Sarah Silverman, and a proud disciple of the Don Rickles school of insult comedy. 
    On Saturday Oct. 20 at 7 and 9:45 Lampanelli returns to the Wilbur Theatre. We talked with Lampanelli from New York, where she was driving home from the dentist, this past spring. 
 
     JSInk: You came to fame through the Comedy Central Friars Roasts, right?
      Oh my God, yeah. No one knew who I was ‘til that first one with Chevy Chase in 2005. It was ka-boom! I was so lucky that the Friars pushed me onto that roast because Comedy Central had no idea who I was. It worked and has ever since then.
     A while ago, extremist Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church protested your act at the Performing Arts Center in Topeka, Kansas and you turned the tables. What happened?
     Someone tweeted some anti-WBC signs which were really funny and I re-tweeted them. All of a sudden this jerk starts targeting me saying they’re going to protest my show. From what I can figure out, they’re mad because I have a gay following, and they hate gay people along with everybody else they hate, including flood victims. So, the night before the show I thought, “They’re threatening to come out. Well, now they can help the people they hate the most because for every protester that shows up I’m going to donate a grand to the Gay Men’s Health Crisis Center in New York.” Either way it’s gonna work out. They’re gonna show up and I’m gonna donate big money or they’re not gonna show up. My driver counted 44 people. The WBC said 48. I said, “I’m not gonna quibble with you, we’ll make it an even 50.” The health center has their check, and in the memo line it says “donation made possible by the WBC.”
    You get some pretty vicious on-line comments.
     It’s OK, they’re allowed to say what they want. This is what’s good about America, free speech. I used to get offended and then I was like, “Wait, if somebody cares enough about me to make a comment, that’s a huge compliment. I matter and I’m on their radar.”
     How much of what you do onstage is your personality?
     You can’t really force an act. I would say that with 90 percent of comics, it’s part of your personality. When I get going off-stage, I’m gonna be funny and a little bawdy, but there’s nothing worse than a comic that’s on all the time. Nothing’s more needy than that.
     On stage, you’re an equal opportunity offender.
     Everybody I like I make fun of. If I don’t like you, I don’t make fun of you.
     That’s the way Don Rickles operates, too.
     Absolutely. What’s funny is I get real [ticked off] in my real life if somebody says a racial slur. I’ve heard that about Rickles, too. He’s very sensitive and takes issue with a lot of that stuff.
     What about people who misinterpret what you’re doing and take the slurs to heart, thinking it validates their own prejudices?
     I used to worry about that a lot, but when I was dating my black boyfriend for about three years, I said to him, “What if these people are laughing at these black jokes for the wrong reason?” And he said, “You can’t be responsible for everybody’s reactions. All you can do is stick to your guns and know what’s inside.”
     Are you trying to defuse the power of angry hate words?
     The words have no power if you don’t give them any. It’s that whole Lenny Bruce angle. I do what I do with a clear conscience and a clear heart. Most people get it and thank God, because I really don’t want to explain myself to them. How do you do comedy without being extreme?
(This is an extended version of a story that ran in the Boston Herald earlier this year.)
Tickets: $62-$42.

246 Tremont St., 617-248-9700 www.wilburtheatre.com