Iraqi-born artist and Arts Professor at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts Wafaa Bilal is curating a new stand-up comedy show coming to San Francisco.
Amreeka: The Comedy Show is scheduled to play May 12, 2023 (8:00pm) at the Brava Theater Center and features an evening of stand-up comedy “birthed in the aftermath of the 2016 election at monthly comedy shows in New York City.”
MORE ON THE PRODUCTION:
“Amreeka,” as many Middle Easterners pronounce it, offers ample fodder for cathartic and witty venting. The show, Bilal says, just like his solo works, “is an artistic platform for creating dialogue and bringing people together on highly charged topics. Not politicizing laughter, but laughing at politics as a form of solidarity and resistance.”
Performers scheduled to appear include Eman El-Husseini (San Francisco’s SketchFest, Just for Laughs, Comedy Network), Usama Siddiquee, (America’s Got Talent, Inventing Anna on Netflix) Jacki Keliiaa (SketchFest, Good Medicine) and Charles McBee (Master of Ceremony).
“We wanted to fight back,” says Bilal, “but fighting back in a different way. I thought that one of the best ways was to establish something for people to come around and have that thing void of politics. What’s the best thing that people love to come around, it’s laughter.”
SAN FRANCISCO STAGE
AMREEKA: The Comedy Show
curated by 2023 Artist-in-Residence Wafaa Bilal
featuring Eman El-Husseini
with Usama Siddiquee and Jackie Keliiaa
and Charles McBee as EmceeAmreeka: The Comedy Show was born after the 2016 election, bringing together diverse comedians with one thing in common: they love to complain. Then and since, the toxic culture and politics in “Amreeka,” as many Middle Easterners pronounce it, offers ample fodder for complaints. This cathartic and witty venting holds a mirror up to realities showing they have become so absurd and surreal one must laugh, if not cry.
May 12, 2023, 8:00 PM
Brava Theater Center (2781 24th Street, San Francisco, CA 94110)
SAN FRANCISCO STAGEGolden Thread Productions, founded in 1996, is the producer and is a theatre company devoted to the Middle East.
Look for Amreeka: The Comedy Show at the Brava Theater Center in San Francisco on May 12, 2023 at 8:00pm.
Tickets range from $20-$100. Organizers point out that “no one will be turned away for lack of funds.”