“Many of you may know this, but I love the Bay Area,” Dave Chappelle told the audience when he first took the stage at the Chase Center for the San Francisco premiere of his film, Untitled. “This is where I learned my craft, and Punchline is the first place I came after I left comedy the first time. I want to thank you all for being here tonight.”

His anticipated appearance came halfway through the show, after his film finished playing, to a largely receptive crowd of 19,000 people.

The documentary takes place during the COVID-19 pandemic’s deadly apex in the summer of 2020. It follows Chappelle, his family and his celebrity friends as they host a series of comedy shows in a Yellow Springs, Ohio, cornfield in hopes of raising the township’s morale.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT KQED