Comedienne Tanya Lewis
The class clown who found out the gift had a purpose.
She was the class clown. It took her years to realize that was the point.
Tanya Lewis had always been the one who could get a room going. Humor was how she got a stranger talking, how she cut the tension when a moment turned awkward, how she made herself known. What she didn’t have was any sense that it was worth anything. It was just how she was built.
That changed at a “Live Your Dreams” event, where she came away with a conviction that has shaped everything since: the ability to make people laugh had been given to her on purpose, and it was never meant to stop at entertainment.
She has been working that conviction out on stage ever since. Her set moves through the things people usually keep to themselves — joining the church, getting the Holy Ghost, the song she wrote about being fit for the Kingdom — and she delivers it with enough confidence that the audience stops feeling like spectators and starts feeling like part of the act.
It stays clean the whole way through. That is not a limitation she works around; it is the point. She has watched rooms full of people who came in carrying something heavy leave lighter than they arrived, and none of it required a punchline anyone had to apologize for.
People started calling her the Doc of Comedy, and the name has stuck, because whatever the pain in the room is, she has a way of getting laughter through it.
The rest of the work
Comedy is the front door, but Tanya has built several rooms behind it.
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The books
Restored
An unflinching account of her own life — the childhood that made her question who she was, the strongholds she came through, and the healing that followed. She asks readers to be slow to judge anyone, because there is always a reason people make the choices they make. Behind the Mask continues the story.
About the book -
The stage play
Torn
Written and produced by Tanya, Torn won Stage Play of the Year in 2021 and earned her a Producer of the Year award. It puts the same story on its feet, and audiences find themselves laughing and crying inside the same scene.
About the play -
The platform
DMV’s Got Talent
Founded in 2013 as a place for the body of Christ to show the gifts God gave them. It has put artists including Nikea Marie, Willie Blount and Sean Sarvis in front of an audience that wanted to see them.
See the showcase
Where she has been
Tanya has opened for Rev. Jesse Jackson, Mo’Nique, Le’Andria Johnson, Cocoa Brown, VaShawn Mitchell, Marcus D. Wiley, Griff and Raheem DeVaughn.
- Church Stars Comedienne of the YearAwarded twice
- Stage Play of the Year2021, for Torn
- Producer of the YearFor Torn
- African American MuseumHonoree
- 39th Annual Stellar AwardsPerformer
- Honored three more timesBy other organizations
Tanya lives in Woodbridge, Virginia with her three children, and serves in the performing arts ministry at Victory Christian Ministries International as an actor, comedian, mime and spoken word artist.