Événement

Bay Area Comedy Invasion 2016

Our audience loved the first "invasion" last summer and host Ash Fisher will return with three new guests to Arena Theater for a second round of cutting edge stand-up comedy that will keep you laughing all through the evening.
The lineup for the January show includes headliner Phil Johnson, Shanti Charan, and Bryant Hicks.

PHIL JOHNSON is a man who gets mistaken for a woman, but only by those not paying attention. That revelation kicks off a battle for self-awareness where comedy and music are the weapons of choice. It's a battle that has taken Johnson to such esteemed festivals as the Edinburgh Fringe and Sundance Film Festivals and the Top 8 Finals of the World Series of Comedy.

"I've always been the guy who isn't quite what people expect," he says. Using that experience, Johnson pokes holes in the medical marijuana argument, discusses being a white guy at a hip hop show (and the innocent gestures that can get him in trouble), and reveals why Hawaii isn't the paradise we think it is.

Feature: SHANTI CHARAN's bubbly personality and contagious smile lure in audiences and her comedic abilities keep them laughing. She is a Bay Area favorite and a regular at every local club including both San Francisco and Sacramento Punch Line, Cobb's, Rooster T Feathers and The Improv. Charan was awarded SF Weekly's 2012 Best Stand-Up on the Way Up. SF Weekly describes Charan's writing as "clever and confident beyond her years."

Feature: BRYANT HICKS is a stand-up comic who has lit up the comedy stages of the San Francisco Punchline, San Jose Improv, and all over the West Coast. He co-produces the monthly stand-up show Top Shelf Comedy at Drexl Bar in Oakland, featuring the best comics in the Bay Area.

Host ASH FISCHER is a comedian, actor and writer. She is not a comedienne, an actress or a writeress. Switched at birth and raised on the East Coast, she has since found her home in Oakland, California. Ash was the 2012 Newcomer Runner-Up in the Ladies of Laughter Contest at Gotham Comedy Club in NYC. She has performed at San Mateo Pride; Win River Casino in Redding, CA; The Punch Line SF and is a regular at Gladys's Early Show at The Comic Strip in NYC. Ash co-produced the 2014 Hella Gay Comedy Festival in Oakland; does voiceovers whenever someone lets her; and has written for The Advocate, Wear Your Voice Mag and GuyTalk. She is a self-proclaimed selfie expert. Ash holds a B.F.A. in Theatre from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, and Sallie Mae will never let her forget it.