When you feel your blood pressure rise over the 2008 election season, when you're depressed or enraged or confused or inspired by what passes for civic life in 21st Century America, Laugh Out the Vote will be there with the comedy cure to your political malaise. Laugh Out the Vote brings together five stand-up comedians in the final countdown before Election Day to satirize, skewer, mock, parody, deflate, debunk, and generally ridicule the political scene in a juggernaut of hilarious catharsis.
Will Durst is author of The All-American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing, and is, according to The New York Times, "quite possibly the best political satirist working in the country today." He is a five-time Emmy nominee and host/co-producer of the ongoing award winning PBS series Livelyhood, a regular commentator on NPR and CNN, a contributor to The Progressive, and has appeared on Letterman, Comedy Central, HBO and Showtime, receiving 7 consecutive nominations for the American Comedy Awards Stand Up of the Year.
www.willdurst.com
W. Kamau Bell was named Best Comedian 2008 by The SF Weekly, which called him "smart, stylish, and very much in the mold of politically outspoken comedians like Dave Chappelle and Margaret Cho." He was doing Obama jokes on Comedy Central's Premium Blend way back in 2005. Currently Kamau is performing his critically-acclaimed first solo show, The W. Kamau Bell Curve: Ending Racism In About An Hour.
According to the Seattle Times, Hari Kondabolu's performance at the 2006 Bumbershoot Music and Arts Festival "eviscerated Western hypocrisy with a verbal razor that had overtones of Lenny Bruce." He has also performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Comedy Central's Live at Gotham and was featured in the 2007 HBO U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen.
The Boston Globe said, "there are countless ways to make someone someone laugh, and Betsy Salkind knows most of them. Want sarcastic wit? Political humor? Or maybe just a good animal mime? Salkind can pull all that off and more." Best known as 'Squirrel Lady,' Betsy has appeared on Girls Night Out, Last Comic Standing, and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. She was a staff writer for SATURDAY NIGHT SPECIAL and Roseanne, and is author of More Than Once Upon A Time (a children's book for adults) as well as the blog "Ethel's Law."
www.BetsySalkind.com
San Francisco native Nato Green is a brainy, liberal, Jewish stand-up comedian who was featured in SF Sketchfest 2008. Nato's comedy has been heard on KSRO 1350AM and Green960AM, and through his blogs on Huffington Post. Nato is the Official Comedian of Stephen Elliott's Progressive Reading Series, where he has performed with such literary greats as Jonathan Franzen, Daniel Handler, Jane Smiley, Andrew Sean Greer, Tobias Wolff, and Michelle Tea. Nato has established an SF comedy institution in Iron Comic®, his Iron Chef-spoofing game show, profiled in the San Francisco Chronicle. He also produces Laughing Liberally Local 415, an ongoing political comedy showcase, and the New Jew Revue, the nay-punim of Jewish stand-up.
www.natogreen.com
