Lance Norris

Lance Norris (born August 9, 1962) is an American actor/writer/director/stand-up comic/critic/mentalist.

Life and career
Norris was born in Des Moines, Iowa and attended Whitman College where he was a wrestler and rugby player. He also attended Emerson College where he wrestled under US Team Coach Jim Peckham. He has appeared in the movies Mystic River, Glory, Be Cool and With Honors, was Squeers in the West Coast premiere of the 8 and half hour long play The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby and he played a SWAT team leader on an episode of the Fox TV series Against The Law.

Norris co-hosted a morning show for Boston's WBCN and WZLX for almost 20 years. He collected some of his radio scripts as the book Ask A Bitter Man. He was also a consultant for the short-lived Mike O'Malley Show on NBC, and submitted material for the Emmy-nominated Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher on Comedy Central and Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update on NBC. He was listed as a Contributing Editor in one issue of the National Lampoon, in 1994.

Norris has written a number of plays including 8 Gr8 D8s and JWL., and has registered over 100 songs with Old Boston Publishing (BMI) and Dutchco Music (BMI).

From the IMDB: Lance Norris lives the life a country gentleman on the coast of Massachusetts. After shattering his kneecap during a bar fight scene in the movie The Mouse, Norris writes and does voice work for Charles Laquidara's morning radio show from his home studio, on WZLX in Boston. He also writes an occasional joke for P.I with Bill Maher and articles for magazines like Entertainment Weekly and Musician. Norris is also the author of two joke books and a former Contributing Editor to National Lampoon. A multi-talented musician, Norris is active in the local Boston music scene and is credited with writing over 100 songs on BMI. As of 1998, only one CD of his works remains in print. He can also be seen in music videos by Stevie Nicks, Milli Vanilli, The Stools and Keel, and the random TV commercial.

Norris is an adjunct professor at the University of Massachusetts and a former cultural lecturer at the Chengdu University of Science and Technology in the People's Republic of China.

Norris lives on the coast, south of Boston in Marshfield, Massachusetts, with his wife Amy and their four children. As of 2006 he was teaching acting workshops at Maura Tighe Casting in Boston, MA and is available as a mentalist for corporate events. He is also the Boston, MA area theatre critic for playshakespeare.com (the internet's largest free resource for William Shakespeare) and sits on the board of directors for the Plymouth Independent Film Festival.

His band, Lance Norris and The Dog Track Gravy, are currently active in the Northeast college and club market.

Televised performances

 * 20/20 (November 26, 2001)
 * Saturday Night Live (1994)
 * America's Funniest People (October 17, 1993)
 * Politically Incorrect (1994)
 * The Mike O’Malley Show (1999)
 * Against The Law (1990)
 * The Movie Loft (2001)

Feature films

 * The Zookeeper (2010)
 * The Invention of Lying (2009)
 * Mystic River (2003)
 * Anathema (2003)
 * No Sleep (2005)
 * Be Cool (2004)
 * The Mouse (1996)
 * With Honors (1994)
 * Glory (1989)

Discography

 * Meat The Stools (1989)
 * Sophomore Slump (1990)
 * Khaki (1990)
 * Soft as a Grape (1991)
 * The Unplayable Lie (1992)
 * X-mas With The Stools (1994)
 * All of Mao's Good Little Children Sing The Songs of Lance Norris (1995)
 * Draconian Messures (1998)
 * Nine Inch Jails (2000)
 * Samples- A Musical Ouvre-View of The Stools (2004)
 * Untraditionally Handsome (2010)

Collected work

 * ''Ask A Bitter Man Vol. 1“, 1992, Dutchco Press. ISBN 1-4116-2646-X
 * I've Seen Better Film on the Teeth of Wolverines, 2007. Dutchco Press. ISBN 978-0-6151-5938-6