Hilarious homecoming

Actress and comedienne Katie Rubin—whose sometimes outrageous performances brightened shows at the B Street Theatre, Capital Stage and elsewhere a few years ago—is back in town. She’s performing twice on Saturday, June 6—at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. at Big Idea Theatre, 1616 Del Paso Boulevard—as part of Big Idea’s Weekend of Comedy event. Tickets are $20 in advance (or $25 at the door) and can be purchased at www.bigideatheatre.org. Rubin will also be teaching an improv comedy class at Big Idea on Sunday, June 7 ($45, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.).

Rubin’s 90-minute stand-up show called Something Different talks about everything from sex and dating to scented “hippie soaps” and homeless people.

“I make a lot of jokes about meditation, spirituality and addiction recovery. It’s kind of like if you’ve read a self-help book, or been in a self-help seminar, or been in therapy, this show will make fun of all that, in a playful way,” she says. “If we can’t laugh at the things we’re going through, we aren’t really going to get through the day.”

She added that after five years based in Los Angeles, she found “I kept having to leave town to write”—so she moved back to Sacramento.

Rubin’s specialty on stage is playing irreverent, impulsive characters. Her one-woman show Insides OUT ran at the Sacramento Theatre Co. and the (late, lamented) Foothill Theatre Co. She was a standout as the hedonistic (and pregnant) sister Izzy in the B Street’s production of the Pulitzer-winning script Rabbit Hole. In the Capital Stage production of the Tony-nominated In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play), Rubin played a late Victorian-era woman being treated for “hysteria.” Rubin also toured with solo shows including Why I Died, a Comedy, and one with a title you can’t say on radio, Dick So Big.