Scott Blakeman
is, "The top political comedian working in New York today,"(NBC) and "an astute, funny political observer"(New York Times). Scott performs his political humor from a liberal Jewish point of view around the world including the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland, the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam and the Just for Laughs Festival in Montreal. He is an original member of "Laughing Liberally" a New York based political comedy show.
Scott was featured on MSNBC's live coverage of the 2010-2012 White House Correspondents Dinner, and appears regularly as a liberal commentator on the live webcast FoxNews.com Live. Scott also has appeared on The Young Turks on Current TV. He has made more than forty national television appearances, including Comedy Central's "Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn," and was the warmup comedian for "Late Show with David Letterman" on CBS. Blakeman is a frequent contributor to the Huffington Post.
Blakeman appears regularly at New York's famed cultural institution the 92nd St. Y, where he has hosted live interviews with comedy greats Robert Klein, Lewis Black and Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, and co-hosted, with Keith Olbermann, a tribute to James Thurber. Blakeman interviewed comedian Freddie Roman at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in conjunction with their Catskills exhibition.
Scott is a favorite with Jewish audiences and performs regularly at Temples and Jewish Community Centers. He performed his one man show Liberal Jew at the Grange Hall on Martha's Vineyard in 2011 and 2012, and the Lenox Town Hall in the Berkshires. Scott has also appeared twice at San Francisco's famed Kung Pao Kosher Comedy. Scott was also featured in Radical Mensches and Maniacs: New Jewish Humor and Music at LaMaMa Theater.
Blakeman teaches a Standup Comedy Workshop at The New School,and his past students include The Daily Show's Jon Stewart and Caroline Rhea.
For more information about Scott Blakeman, please visit: www.ScottBlakeman.com »
Dean Obeidallah
's comedy comes in large part from his unique background of being the son of a Palestinian father and a Sicilian mother. Dean, an award winning comedian who was at one time a practicing attorney, has appeared on Comedy Central's "Axis of Evil" Comedy special and is the co-creator and co-producer of Comedy Central.com's critically acclaimed Internet series "The Watch List" featuring a cast of all Middle Eastern-American comedians performing stand up and sketch comedy. Dean has also appeared twice on ABC's "The View," and was recently one of five comedians profiled in a PBS one hour TV Special entitled: "Stand Up: Muslim-American Comics Come of Age."
Dean has been featured on numerous international and national television and radio programs including CNN's "American Morning" and "The Situation Room," PBS' "Newshour with Jim Lehrer," "Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen," BBC, HD's "Dan Rather Reports," NPR, Fox News Radio, ABC's "20/20" Al Jazeera's "Min Washington," "Democracy Now with Amy Goodman" and CNN International's "Inside the Middle East." In addition, he has appeared in various publications including Time magazine, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times.
Dean is proud to have received the first annual "Bill Hicks Spirit Award" for "thought provoking comedy" (named after the late comedian Bill Hicks) from the NY Underground Comedy Festival and the Hicks' Family.
Dean is the co-creator and co-producer of the annual NY Arab-American Comedy Festival (www.arabcomedy.org).
In addition to performing comedy throughout the US, Dean has performed in the Middle East in Amman, Beirut, Cairo, Dubai, Haifa, and Ramallah.
For more information about Dean, please visit: www.deanofcomedy.com »
Scott Blakeman is an astute, funny political observer who loosed his darts in a tone that remained suave and smilingly ironic. One of New York's sharper political commentators." - New York Times
MR. OBEIDALLAH is part of a vanguard of young Arab-American comics who are determined to show America they are just like everybody else, one laugh at a time." - Christian Science Monitor