Chonda Pierce, the Queen of Clean, is coming soon to a stage or screen near you, and she's tickled to be making people chuckle again.
The best-selling funny woman performs tonight in Hot Springs with an appearance in Mountain Home slated for May 18.
In between, her new film, "Roll With It," will be shown at theaters in Little Rock, Fayetteville, Rogers, Jonesboro and hundreds of other places from coast to coast.
After the covid-19 crisis canceled concerts and put her movie on hold, "it's just kind of back to the old routine and the joy and the laughs and the fun," she said. "I think it's almost feeling normal now."
Pierce, 63, has three platinum comedy videos, meaning they've sold more than 100,000 copies each, and five gold videos, with sales above 50,000 each.
Over the years, she's sold more than 3.5 million concert tickets, including for stops last year in Paragould, Fort Smith, Forrest City, Batesville and Russellville.
"Roll With It" was filmed in her own hometown of Ashland City, Tenn., population 5,193, roughly 25 miles northwest of Nashville.
"It's my first major motion picture where I had the lead role, and I'm terrified, but I'm really excited," Pierce said Tuesday.
Covid-19 delayed the debut a few years, she said, and townfolk ask questions about the release date every time she goes to the grocery store.
Many of them were extras.
Pierce plays Bonnie Taylor, a widow struggling to pay the bills and move forward following the death of her husband.
Facing the loss of her home and a demotion at the Biscuit Barrel, she enters a karaoke contest with a $10,000 first prize.
Fortunately for viewers, Pierce knows how to belt out a tune. She performed at Opryland theme park early in her career and has appeared numerous times at the Grand Ole Opry.
Musically inclined, but unaccomplished as a dancer, she made her mark instead by cracking jokes and doing impressions.
Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon, known on stage as Minnie Pearl, got a kick out of Pierce's Minnie Pearl impersonations. "She even invited me to speak to her ladies group at church," the comedian recalled.
From an early age, "I fell in love with comedy," Pierce said. "I had every Bill Cosby LP. ... I would sneak and watch Carol Burnett."
As a theater arts student at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, "I was always drawn to the funny roles," she said.
She taught school briefly.
"That was a real eye-opening experience because I went to school, wanting to be a drama teacher. And about six months of it -- that was enough for me," she said.
She enjoyed bringing smiles to people's faces.
"I just fell in love with the art of throwing words together in a way that that makes people laugh," she said.
There are plenty of laughs in "Roll With It" -- and a fair amount of music, too.
She delivers Fanny Crosby's "Blessed Assurance" at church and "I Will Survive" -- the Gloria Gaynor disco standard -- at the karaoke competition.
Pierce sings both with conviction.
During the church scenes, she dons a choir robe emblazoned with the United Methodist Church's cross-and-flame symbol.
That apparel was borrowed from her friends at Ashland City United Methodist Church.
"I go to a little Freewill Baptist Church but I consider myself ... a Charismatic person," she said.
Throughout the film, the music is as finely tuned as the humor. The soundtrack includes Steve Winwood's "Roll with It" and Huey Lewis's "Do You Believe in Love" among other 1980s classics.
While the credits say the film isn't based on actual people or events, some of the material seems semi-autobiographical.
Family members have always inspired much of Pierce's humor, though the laughter is sometimes mingled with tears.
Early in life, she lost two sisters -- one in a car crash, another to cancer. Her father, an ordained minister, abandoned the family.
"He left the Nazarene Church and actually left us but had a hard life," she said. "Ups and downs, mental illness, just the gift that keeps on giving."
Some of those genes were apparently passed along.
"There are many hereditary components. I deal with clinical depression, but I love Jesus and my Effexor," she said, referring to a popular medication for the illness.
Pierce's mother, Virginia Farless, a major source of love and amusement, died in 2012. Pierce's husband, author and college English professor David Pierce, died two years later. He was 54.
The initial "Roll With It" script had both Pierces' fingerprints on it.
"It's really the last thing my husband and I ever worked on together," she said. "I'm just kind of excited to honor him, and his hard work and his writing."
The couple met while attending Cheatham County Central High School; they were married 31 years.
The ending "just didn't turn out the way we wanted," Pierce said.
"He had survived alcoholism. He had gone to rehab [and] was just on the up and up and doing really wonderful, and [he] had a stroke and did not survive it. And it was tragic and hard, and it just seemed quite unfair," she said.
"You know, you go through all those things when you grieve. I was angry. I was angry at him and was aggravated at God. And then that grief subsides and you begin to live rejoicing in the beautiful memories that you had," she said.
"I am so absolutely thrilled to have been his wife and had his children and and glad to start going forward," she said.
"Widowhood is not for the faint of heart. It's very, very hard. But there does come a time you breathe again, and you can chuckle again about the things that made you laugh together, but you do it carefully," she said.
There's not a blueprint for how to recover.
"Everybody's journey of grief is different. There are no rules. You know, you grieve on your own time and on your own in your own space," she said.
These days, David Pierce and Virginia Farless are still part of her act.
"It's kind of funny just because I have a warped sense of humor, but most of my material's gone to heaven now," Pierce said. "I look like a jerk talking about the dead but, you know, once they're passed, you can tell tell all the things you want."
Asked her favorite scripture verse, Pierce said John 6:63: "The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing," it reads in the New International Version.
"What's going on in this body of ours and in this flesh that we're dealing with is very temporary, but the spirit of who we are and the soul of who we are, that's what lasts forever and that's what you have to concentrate on," she said.
She senses that history is almost over and eternity beckons.
"These days are so temporary. I sound like my grandma -- Jesus was coming every time the weather got bad. But I do think we are [nearing Christ's return]," she said.
Read the Bible and "you'll find us all in those last few pages. I think we're there near the end," she said.
The tragedies she has faced haven't weakened Pierce's faith.
"I'm a follower of Jesus Christ and the Bible guides me all along the way. And the Bible always said life is not easy. It's full of ups and downs but it can have a strong foundation. You can face more than you ever dreamed that you could," she said.
Pierce is no stranger to the Natural State. She's performed here multiple times.
"I love Arkansas. Arkansas's been good to me. And I love your governor," she said.
She has warm feelings for not only Sarah Huckabee Sanders but the entire Huckabee clan, she added.
"I've been friends with her family for many years, and her dad and mom are good pals of mine, and I'm just so proud to see her living the legacy of such good people," Pierce said.
She appears from time to time on former Gov. Mike Huckabee's weekly television program and she's visited the Holy Land with him several times.
Pierce will entertain on a Mediterranean cruise he's leading later this year.
In an text message, Mike Huckabee said he holds the comedian in high esteem.
"We consider her family. And she's also one of the kindest and most authentic Christian souls I know," he said.
Pierce, Huckabee said, can be not only hilarious about also deeply insightful.
"She speaks to the world 'everyday people' live in and her willingness to be brutally transparent about her own challenges and struggles gives her the ability to relate to an audience like no other," he said.
"She can make an audience laugh and cry and then when she sings, she has the voice of a Broadway headliner," he said. "There is a reason that she is the top-selling female comedy recording artist of all time. Her ability to paint a vivid picture with her storytelling regarding the simplest of life experiences is just brilliant."
If you go: Chonda Pierce performs tonight at 7 p.m. at Horner Hall in Hot Springs.
She performs at 7 p.m. May 18 at The Sheid in Mountain Home.
Tickets to both shows range from $19.75 to $55.75.
More information available at chonda.org.
Information about her new film is available at rollwithit.movie.