The saying "it's funny because it's true" has never been truer than with ASU alumna and comedian Maysoon Zayid, who discusses issues such as disability, gender and race with her comedy.
Zayid has come home to Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at ASU to become the University's first in-house comedian after a successful career as a comedian and actress.
“ASU invited me back,” Zayid wrote in an email. “I was excited about the work that the Herberger Institute is doing as well as President Crow’s effort to make ASU more accessible, inclusive, and diverse.”
While at ASU, she will also teach a class called "The Art of Stand Up Comedy: From Open Mics to Marquee Lights" and hosting the College Comedy Bowl and One Mic Stand, in which students from her class will perform.
Counseling and psychology graduate student Joel Chabrier takes Zayid's Art of Stand Up Comedy class. He said the class features workshops as well as guests speakers who talk about what it’s like to do comedy professionally.
He said Zayid always cracks jokes and that she helps students brainstorm which jokes to use during their own sets.
“She doesn’t tell us what to use, but she gives us ideas of things that work and things that don’t work so that we might be able to … scrap something together like Frankenstein out of our jokes,” Chabrier said.
Technical communications junior Cameron Duke is another one of the students from her Art of Stand Up Comedy class. He said that watching her Ted Talk was an eye opener since she’s from a different culture than he is.
“It’s hard to understand somebody else’s shoes especially when they have a different sense of humor,” Duke said.
He said watching the Ted Talk helped him to understand “where she’s coming from and how she uses critical comedy.”
Duke said she’s been helping him with presentation and that giving a positive energy to the room is a very important aspect of performing, especially in a setting where many comics perform.
“If there’s a comic before you that actually doesn’t do well or just completely bombs, you have to be able to, in a sense, resuscitate the audience,” Duke said.
Zayid said she had an amazing mentor, Marshall W. Mason, while at Herberger but that she also faced ableism, which is discrimination in favor of able-bodied people.
“I’m thrilled to see that that has changed," she wrote. "The 5 colleges are now so much more diverse and disabled friendly."
While here, Zayid will also host “Disability Festivus,” a workshop through Google Chat on Feb. 23 and March 1. She wrote she hopes that ASU can be a model for other universities.
“We are creating a safe space where ASU students with disabilities can air their grievances about what’s not working as far as accessibility, accommodations, and student life on campus,” she wrote.
Steven J. Tepper, Herberger dean, wrote in an email that it’s incredible that she’s back and sharing her gifts with students.
“My hope is that as many students as possible get exposed to her,” Tepper wrote. “She changes lives. She uses comedy to open people up and get them to share, feel, and express ideas in new ways.”
Tepper also wrote that Zayid is an acute political observer and that she can teach students about surviving college, performing stand up comedy and facilitating conversations for students with disabilities.
“Maysoon is an incredibly generous, insightful artist whose moral compass is unfailing,” he wrote in an email.
Zayid’s advice for students is to not just be as good as others in their field, but to be better and to have many skills.
“If you’re an actor, be a writer too," Zayid wrote. "Singer? Learn to cha-cha. Comedians? Learn how to make balloon animals. Yes, clowns are creepy but you can make made cash at birthday parties so you can fund your dream.”
Related Links:
Actress, comedian Amy Schumer visits ASU to promote new Judd Apatow film featuring Lebron James
Q&A: Comedian, actor, talk show host Tom Green
Reach the reporter at avcabral@asu.edu or follow @angeligagaa on Twitter.
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