Meet Today’s Guest: Mona Aburmishan

Mona is an international comedian based in her hometown of Chicago. She has performed, emceed, and produced comedy shows, competitions and events in major clubs, theaters and universities around the world. In addition to comedy, Mona is a sought-after speaker for her experience using stand-up comedy to bring joy and affinity to various socio-political topics in the United States, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Mona has a Master’s in International Development and is fluent in English, German and Arabic and performs in these languages. Having lived and worked around the world, Mona uses her global insight and homegrown Chicago-style to offer a fresh look at shifting frustration into funny.

Most notably, Mona became the first Arab and Muslim woman to perform stand-up comedy in the nation’s most prestigious institutions: Carnegie Hall in New York City as well as the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC; and will be returning this Fall! Currently, Mona is back home in Chicago after having completed a powerful Pre-COVID touring schedule throughout US, and recently WON the “Kennan Thompson Road to NYC” comedy competition in Las Vegas this year; having just completed her Summer tour throughout the West Bank, Europe and the United Kingdom.

As an international producer, host and headliner Mona in less than one week performed and produced 9 shows spanning Palestine, Switzerland, and the heart of London’s thriving comedy scene. While in London, Mona was a special featured guest honoring her self-produced tour on “Islam Channel” as a thriving female Muslim entertainer which was broadcast to over 100 countries. In addition to regularly performing in the US, Canada, EU, UK and the Middle East, Mona is a sought-after headliner on the African continent. Becoming a regular in the South African market, Mona just recently headlined one of the world’s top ten comedy establishments – The Cape Town Comedy Club and returns to tour the entire Sub Sharan African region again in early last year. As for Northern Africa and Middle East, Mona was a featured guest on “Al Bernameg” with host Dr. Bassem Youssef’s ground-breaking satirical news program (once North Africa’s version of “The Daily Show”); as well as headlined Comedy Central’s latest Season 2 and 3, Premier “Comedy Central Present: Stand Up Al Waggif” filmed on location in Dubai, UAE - featured throughout the Middle East and Africa.

She was the first female to headline this revolutionary series produced by Viacom. State side, Mona has been a regular throughout the Midwest, Northeast, South and West Coasts of US. While touring Mona always checks in with Chicago based media as a consistent featured guest on “Pretty Late with Patti Vasquez” Chicago’s #1 late-night radio show WGN 720 Radio as well as a regular feature on Chicago’s #1 daytime talk show, Windy City Live! Globally, Mona launched “Class Clowns” a stand-up comedy, improv, spoken word & writing workshop for kids and adults of all ages in all environments using the comedy club as a microcosm for leadership, self-expression, face-to-face empowerment and healing. The workshop is currently running in the Chicago & Cape Town, South Africa. She is currently working with the University of Chicago to teach medical students comedy skills to relate better to their patients and overcome racism and income disparities.

Share with the audience a little bit about who you are, and why you're on the journey that you're in right now.

The truth is this. I'm your classic bullied kid that turned out when she went back to her high school reunion that I was actually the bully. So I'm the reformed bully, whereby I really got to see that creating laughter as the school bully or the class clown that I was because I had a lot of stuff going on at home that I was bringing to the table. There was a lot of stuff going on personally, where making other people laugh, made me feel really, really good. That line of comedy and tragedy, I walked my whole life. I was a really, really big kid. And in order to get anybody to give me attention, I had to be the funny kid. And typically the funny kid can actually be the bully. So that's really my talk. My conversation and my journey was the emancipation of your high school class clown. It's a shift in perspective. Where, really, laughter is the best medicine.

And you teach this laughter all over the world. I know you've been on some big stages, not only here in the United States, but internationally, so talk about that.

I am my own worst bully. Because imagine, if you're the bully in school, who do you think else you're bullying? You're pulling yourself all day. Us comedians bully ourselves. It's like this rat race. So as my career was getting better and better, it took me a long time to look back and say, hey, Mona, you've done Carnegie Hall in less than a decade, kid. How about you tone down all your self hate? How many of us are super successful and still like I can't believe it.

Where did you grew up Mona?

I grew up in Chicago. I grew up by Wrigley. I have a Palestinian father who's immigrant came in 71. I have an American British mother and my grandmother immigrated after World War II from the United Kingdom. That was back when Arabs were like the hippies. My pops was in the 70s with this big Afro. And my mom's like he's super cute. So like me understanding my own identity where my Grandmother has a British accent. And my other grandmother is Palestinian like literally from the motherland. And I'm their translator because they don't speak the same language.

How did you get into comedy?

It was one Christmas Day. I had come back from Namibia finishing my thesis in late 20s. And my family said you need to be a comedian. My family said, listen, you're working so hard to entertain us. You need to be a comedian. I said, I just got my masters. The way they came at me was as if it was like a confessional. But that was the best journey of my life because I really did a deep dive into intellect because my first reaction was like, I'm not going to be comedian. They're dumb. Turns out, it's the exact opposite. Your comedian is your modern day philosopher, court jester, celebrity, teacher, reporter. So you have to know a lot about a lot of things.

I know you have a really strong belief about comedy in our culture today. And more importantly, comedy as it really relates to our health. Can you tell us more?

Tip #1 - The three tips that I would give anybody, right now, if they're listening to it, the most important rule in comedy is “yes and.” So whatever you're dealing with, lean into it. If you just got into a car accident, “yes and.” How was this car accident here to serve me? Right? So whatever's going on in your world, if you allow that the world isn't happening to you, it's happening for you. And you just have to add, these are principles of comedy. And these are principles of self-development.

Tip #2 - The second would be a perspective exercise. Which is everything makes sense from the other person's perspective. What is that perspective? And how is noticing that gap in difference important? For example, when I walk into a comedy club, I walk in early and I evaluate my environment. Where’s the waitress staff, what's going on with that? Has the lighting been set up in my environment? What is my environment? Understanding how they interpret me. As an American comedian, who has an English accent and my type of accent? What data are they assuming is true? Based on me walking on stage?

Tip #3 - And third, is going to sound totally counter to number one, but third is the power of no. Being able to be like no, these are my boundaries. Then you can have you have control of the mic, you have control of your voice. And that's why when I teach these comedy classes for kids because if you can navigate society by being able to say Yes, and make fun of yourself, understand how they're seeing you, and how you're seeing yourself and able to say, No, no one's ever gonna mess with your mind.

I work on a lot of spiritual, acupuncture meditative and the comedy classes that I teach like this perspective, exercise is taught at the University of Chicago level. This is a project that I'm currently in three year project where we're teaching physicians, the art of standup comedy, as a modality to navigate society, racism, income disparities, because when a white doctor walks in looking just like you, Christie with a lab coat, and there is an African American man, that's 80 years old, he is existing in a conversation that’s tied to civil rights. So he might feel some type of way when you walk in, or you might be like, this is a black man, I don't want to I don't really don't want to insult him in any way, understanding some of the principles of comedy allows that to navigate much more holistically. And that's the project we're working on.

Mona’s Free Gift:

I'd like to offer a 90-minute workshop which I’ll have the information on when that live class is going to be. It's a 90-minute class clowns workshop. It's the same workshop, whether it's kids in high school for veterans, those old timers or in corporate America, where I've been doing a dual development model for corporate training, team building. A lot of these same principles go into all that training modality. So offering a 90-minute course. I might have comedian friends coming in and out of the background, in and out from different countries. You never know. We've offered that and then it will be also recorded and available for consumption. So we'll have that recording available.

Free Gift Link

How to connect with Mona:

Website: https://monacomedy.com/

“Your comedian is your modern-day philosopher, court jester, celebrity, teacher, reporter. You have to know a lot about a lot of things.” – Mona Aburmishan