THE W. KAMAU BELL CURVE to Play SoloNova Festival at PS 122, 5/11-5/22

"The W. Kamau Bell Curve: Ending Racism in About an Hour" Written and Performed by W. Kamau Bell. Directed by Paul Stein. From May 11 to 22, 2010.

WHERE

TerraNova Collective's 7th Annual SoloNova Festival
Performance Space 122 Downstairs
150 First Ave at 9th St.
New York, NY 10009
1st Avenue and 9th Street
L Train to 1st Ave; F Train to 2nd Ave; 6 Train to Astor Pl.

WHEN

MAY 11, 14, 16, 20 at 9p
MAY 22 at 4p

TICKETS & INFORMATION
http://showboxoffice.com/pickashow.php?id=222&db=berkeley
BRING A FRIEND OF A DIFFERENT RACE & GET IN 2FOR1!!! (Use the promo code solo241)

MORE about the show:
http://www.wkamaubell.com/the-w-kamau-bell-curve

ABOUT THE BELL CURVE
JUST LIKE SKINNY JEANS, superhero movies, and frozen yogurt, racism continues to make a comeback. In 2007, The W. Kamau Bell Curve: Ending Racism in About An Hour opened big and came out swinging against big targets. Back in 2007, it was celebrity racism that was all the rage. (Imus, Kramer, Rosie O'Donnell, Dog The Bounty Hunter, etc...) But three short years later, amazingly, America has elected the first black president... of the Republican National Committee!!! Oh, and we also elected the first black president of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama. All this MUST mean racism is over. Right? We're officially in Post-Racial America... Right?... Right?

WRONG! Racism has redoubled - no, re-quadrupled - its efforts. Because now that a black man - or a half black/half white man if we want to split not so nappy hairs - is leading the free world, the stakes just have gotten much, much higher, especially for the really racist racists. And racism hasn't run this rampant since Martin Luther King, Jr. had that dream. While the economy fails, racism is thriving. Whether it's Rush Limbaugh's & Glenn Beck's daily treason, OR tea parties that look like casual Fridays at Ku Klux Klan rallies, OR Henry Louis Gates getting arrested for having a sticky door, OR the state of Texas deciding that the only good history book is a WHITES ONLY history book, OR the continued broadcast of BET, OR Tyler Perry... being Tyler Perry, OR the one-two-three cinematic punch of The Blindside, Avatar, and Precious. Meanwhile the 2010 Census STILL wantds to know how many "negroes" are out there. And all the while black people wonder, "Did we get a black president OR a president who is black?" Well, W. Kamau Bell is here to make (non)sense of all of it all. The Curve is a comedic exploration of the current state of America's racism, combined with a little (unknown) history, a little Powerpoint, and a whole bunch of Kamau. And because racism is always attacking in new ways and from new angles, Kamau attacks back by constantly adding new material. The Curve is a seamless mix of stand-up comedy, video and audio clips, personal stories and solo theatrical performance.

ABOUT KAMAU
W. KAMAU BELL told the very first joke about Barack Obama on Comedy Central's Premium Blend waaaaaaaay back in 2005. Unfortunately, the joke predicted that Barack would never be President. (Oops!) Comedy Central later announced that Kamau had told the very first joke about Barack Obama. For this, Kamau was named on that network's list of Best 100 Obama Moments. Comedy Central also invited Kamau to perform his critically acclaimed solo show, The W. Kamau Bell Curve: Ending Racism in About an Hour, at their theater in Hollywood. "The Curve" enjoyed a long run in San Francisco, had continued success in Oakland and Berkeley, and played to full houses in 2009 at the New York International Fringe Festival. And this May The Curve returns to New York City as a featured part of TerraNova Collective's 7th Annual SoloNova Festival. Time Out New York said, "Happily, Bell finds comic gold in the wide range of material he mines, offering provocative insights into an ugly reality. FOUR STARS" The San Francisco Weekly honored Kamau as the Comedian of the Year in 2008 and also profiled him in a cover story in 2009.

And that's not everything. Kamau has appeared at the prestigious Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal, where he was the only comedian to perform at both the New Faces Show and Best of The Uptown Comics. Kamau spent two years appearing regularly on radio station Live 105 as half of the movie review team Siskel & Negro. (Kamau is Negro.) The duo can still be heard online at their podcast at Rooftop Comedy. And in addition to Comedy Central, Kamau's other TV appearances include Comics Unleashed, KQED's Spark, ABC's View From The Bay, and Filter on G4. Kamau was also featured on the popular podcast WTF with Marc Maron. But Kamau is most proud of co-founding The Solo Performance Workshop (2005), a school for emerging artists. As a writer, Kamau is featured in the book What Would Bill Hicks Say?

Kamau has been profiled in several different newspapers, including four separate occasions in The San Francisco Chronicle - even once (not ironically) during Black History Month. The San Francisco Weeklycalled Kamau "smart, stylish, and very much in the mold of politically outspoken comedians like Dave Chappelle and Margaret Cho" - though he was more excited that they called him "handsome".

 

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