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Bootleg Islam

If you are looking for something a little different this summer - something smart, intelligent and funny - don’t miss Negin Farsad’s new one-woman comedy, Bootleg Islam at the 2005 Dallas Comedy Fest. In Bootleg Islam, comedy award-nominated sketch comedian, Negin Farsad presents an unconventional perspective on her controversial homeland – Iran. Sure women are “second class” citizens and enriched uranium lines the streets, but boy does this fundamentalist Muslim country make for some hilarious comedy!

Bootleg Islam is a comedy about a California-raised Iranian-American girl gallivanting around the streets of Tehran. Drawing from her last trip to Iran for a cousin’s wedding, Farsad combines comic monologues and impressions of family drama to compare oppressed life in Iran with her own Crate-&-Barrel-accented life in America. From witnessing lamb sacrifices to navigating third-world toilets, she uses her personal adventures and her expertise in sketch comedy to give us a glimpse into the Islamic world. She discovers how ridiculous oppression can be, how delicious the third world has become and how hard it is to keep a chador on. Her high-speed time-lapsing montages result in an energetic look into Muslim life where she asks essential questions like “Does this chador make me look fat?” and, “How much ankle is too much ankle?”

Negin Farsad is best known for her work in the sketch comedy duo, Madame Funnypants which has been an official selection at comedy festivals around the country including the Atlanta and Los Angeles Improv Festivals.

A true story told through the eyes of this 20-something, beer-drinking, hamburger-eating, honest-to-goodness American, Bootleg Islam aims to make political repression hilarious and ottoman toilets acceptable. Along the way she finds out something about herself and…well, let’s just say, she comes out on the other side of a Muslim “character arc.”

Bootleg Islam offers a glimpse into often misunderstood Iranian society in language Americans can appreciate. The western world tends not to think of Iran in terms of fashion trends, metrosexuality, the Golden Girls, or IKEA furniture — but believe it or not, these pieces of Americana are all in Iran, in some form. And, at the end of the day — and at the end of the play — ostensibly barbaric Muslims seem a lot more like potential Friendsters.

Negin Farsad is going to make herself into a fundamentalist mullah, a revolutionary DJ, a polemical 10 year old, and a 1920’s gangster, to name a few characters. She’s going to dance, engage in one-woman stage combat, and use a lot of impressive walking techniques all with an air of theatrical energy and a teaspoon of good ol’ fashioned Islamic savvy.

Oh, and you’ll see her wearing Islam-compliant outfits.

For tickets and more information visit the Dallas Comedy Festival website at www.dallascomedyfestival.com

Bootleg Islam at The Dallas Comedy Festival
July 28 Thursday 9pm, July 29 Friday 8pm

West End MarketPlace
Dinosaur Room
603 Munger Avenue, Suite 100B
Dallas, Texas  75202

For more information about the show, including a schedule of other venues across the country, visit the Bootleg Islam website at www.bootlegislam.com

Edited by Erika Wright

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