I walked up the short set of stairs of The Complex in Hollywood’s Theater District, into the narrow hallways lined with people leaning against walls as they waited for their casting call. It is a small building containing several theatres and studios under one roof. I opened the door to my destination, where a set of bleachers were filled with serious, but welcoming students with their eyes set on the stage, ready to absorb some comic knowledge.

During a break, Khalil and Shrime exchanged a witty repartee as they discussed the premise of the workshop.  Their collaborative spirit, intent to create, and an apparent interest in paying their experience forward leave me inclined to coin them the Arab Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.

Did this develop out of a lack of opportunity?
Ryan: It developed because of the process of getting good roles.  We want to have at our hands a plethora of material, and in order for that to happen we have to be the ones to produce it.
Ronnie: We have to create for ourselves if we’re going to move into the position we want.
Ryan: [Middle Easterners] complain about stereotyping, but we can’t expect someone who grew up in Middle America to understand our experience.  We have to start doing our part.

What kind of advice do you have for people trying to get their foot in the door, either on or off stage?
Ryan: Keep moving,
Ronnie: If you’re a writer, keep writing. If you’re an actor, keep acting.
Ryan: Get a job that barely pays the bills so that you can stay hungry. Yea, stay thirsty.
Ronnie: Stay hungry, but not literally. (chuckling)
Ronnie: This business is not, and never will be easy.
Ryan: Don’t ever give yourself a time limit, which is actually something comedian, David Zucker, said that stays with me.
Ronnie (bantering): I’ve got an idea, but I’ll just wait a year to write it down.
Ryan: Also, everyone should be on actorsaccess.com. Networks do something called Diversity Showcase for their own casting, to promote a commitment to diversity.

Can people use their own material to audition?
Ryan: Some networks, like CBS for example, will allow your own material. But most give you the material for an audition. We actually had some people get representation after the ME Comedy Festival through this showcase, and one girl ended up testing for a pilot.

Ronnie and Ryan invited two sketch comedy pros, Jodi Miller and Kimberly Lewis, to lead the workshops — they were high energy, and hilarious to watch. Their crash course crammed all the comedic formulas and set-ups, providing insight into the genius behind the laughs. I had the opportunity to pick the two comic brains…

What do you consider the most challenging part of writing comedy?
Kim: The tendency to get in your own way by over-thinking things, getting stuck in your head, and critiquing or blocking yourself and your creativity as you go. I encourage my students to cultivate a sense of playfulness when they are going to write and perform comedy. One of my favorite quotes is, “Genius is the ability to call up childhood at will.” We all spend years putting on all kinds of armor to protect ourselves in the world, and then we have to try to strip that away as performers and writers to get back to that childlike sense of play. If you think about it, the comedians we love and admire the most are the ones having the most fun.
Jodi: Focusing on one main thing in the sketch. Many times people try to fit too many elements into a scene, which makes it somewhat confusing for the audience.  Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best.

You crammed a lot into two days! Was it fun giving a crash course?
Kim: Yes, it was very fun. Learning comedy is really in the doing, not in the talking about it– writing, performing, and throwing material against the wall to see what sticks.
Jodi: It was a lot of fun teaching this class…I wish we had more time.  Still, I was very impressed with the work everyone did.  Some really funny sketches came out of this and I really hope they all continue to write more material.

They have undoubtedly been inspired to do exactly that.

The sketch workshop attracted, as the title suggests, “Middle Eastern” applicants. For all intents and purposes, the term here is applied culturally as opposed to geographically. About twenty participants made the cut, including Rachid Sabitri, an English actor of Morroccan origin who has done theatre, television, and film work for high-ranking networks such as HBO and the BBC. He is interested in pursuing Arab-Israeli relations in his writing — this workshop serves as a step forward in his work.

The first day wraps up with some reminders. Students are expected to write their own sketches by the next session. In an effort to quell their nerves, Khalil heeds a reminder that the goal of the experience is “to get to know each other, and be able to bounce ideas off one another. You are going to attract your kind of funny, so just write what you want.” Shrime emphasizes, “even if it sucks.”

If you’re in NYC, the New York Arab-American Comedy Festival is sponsoring a similar workshop this Sunday, March 14. Details here>>

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About the Author: Born and raised in Southern CA, Lana Daoud can find herself at home just about anywhere. She has a degree in History with a minor in Middle East Studies, and is currently a fellow of NewGround: A Muslim-Jewish Partnership For Change based in Los Angeles. Home is where the next great experience lies, heart belongs to her nieces, roots are in Palestine.

ON CHOOSING A PATH
In college, I always had a double major: International Relations and Writing. To go to Johns Hopkins-School of Advanced International Studies, I had to drop the writing to a minor. My wisdom as a 19-year-old said, “Well, I want to be one of those people that’s doing something, not one of those people that’s writing about people doing something.” It wasn’t until about 10 years later that I realized,

writing is doing something. It’s actually very powerful.

FROM ATTORNEY TO AUTHOR
While I was at the Department of Justice (DOJ), after 9/11, some crazy policies started to happen (not that it isn’t without historical precedent, we know that the United States interned its Japanese-American population during World War II), but I had to ask, “How? Why is this happening?” I felt it was because Arab-Americans were so invisible in the American consciousness. Arabs had been so dehumanized.

Even though I was working in the legal world and trying to address wrongs that had risen to the level that they could be addressed in the legal system, I felt like there needed to be–to change hearts and minds–you need people to be putting out films and books and short stories and novels, you need to have a counter-voice.

I left the DOJ and went to Lebanon to work as a lawyer, and while doing so I got asked by Rami Khouri of The Daily Star there to write a column and that turned into several columns. I was really amazed when I started to see my columns get reprinted all over the Internet, from things like the Guardian Online to these crazy Iraqi dating sites that would also put up my pieces. That’s when I started to realize that writing is doing something.

I continued to work as a lawyer until 2005, when I finally applied to Columbia University’s Journalism School with the idea that I wanted to know how to become a real writer. When I got to Columbia, no one had written the sort of book I thought somebody would inevitably write after 9/11, or they hadn’t gotten a book deal or something. So I decided to do it and that’s how I made the transition. I went in knowing that I wanted to take a book class and develop a proposal for this book.

PUTTING THE BOOK TOGETHER
Finding the cast was the most important thing and one of the hardest things.

Thank god our community is connected and organized and there are key players in key cities. I could rely on other people’s knowledge of other people.

I knew a lot of people from my generation and certain milieus, but I didn’t know how to find people who went all the way back to Alabama in the 1940s. Also, convincing Arab-Americans to be really open, I hadn’t been published yet–getting people to commit to the amount of time that i needed from them was difficult and people are skeptical and suspicious of having to open up about their lives.

I was really lucky because I sold the book for enough that I could work on it full time. It’s really hard to have a day job then write a book in between the hours that you can steal. You have to learn to be self-disciplined. You have to learn how to spend a lot of time by yourself when you’re in the writing process. It was hard, because in our community even though I had established myself as a lawyer, when you tell people that you don’t have a job and that you’re writing a book, it’s a foreign concept to them: to have been paid to write a book.

THE PUBLISHING PROCESS
Nonfiction is different from fiction. The way it starts with fiction is you send the first three chapters of a fiction book to an agent and if they like it then you send them more, usually the whole book. With nonfiction you have to get an agent to agree to look at your book proposal, which you do by telling an agent what the book is about briefly and why that agent would be good for your book, usually based on their having sold something similar in style or substance. Once the agent agrees, you submit the proposal to them and they either agree or decline to represent you.

There are two principal parts to a book proposal. First is the overview essay, which is a detailed examination of what the themes are in your book, why the book is timely and needs to be written, what your credentials are for writing it and what the market is for it, and then most importantly how the book is going to written, who are the cast, the characters and what’s going to happen. With a nonfiction proposal, people are not seeing the book, so you need to answer a lot of their questions up front. The second part of the book proposal is the submission of at least one sample chapter that lets the agent and then editors see how you’re going to write the book. Once the agent agrees to take you on, you sign with them and it usually means that they will get 15 percent of your domestic sales. That agent then–since they know who the editors are at the [publishing] houses, and what editors will be interested in it–they send it out to the editors and from there, the editors make bids.

ON BOOK PROMOTION
You want to think that if something is really good it just rises to the top, but it doesn’t. You can hire a publicist but most of the promotion falls on the writer. I find it awkward but you have to do it.

For more on Alia Malek and A Country Called Amreeka, visit www.acountrycalledamreeka.com

What drove you to pursue comedy and to what extent have you left your job as an attorney?
When I went to law school it was because I had dreams of running for elected office. I believed a law degree was a good background for politics.  After a few years of being a lawyer though, I realized I was more creative than I previously thought and the law was too dry and confining. I started performing comedy at night because I always enjoyed making people laugh.  After doing comedy for a few years at night, I decided to take a chance on doing it full time.

I always believed it’s better to take a chance on something you really want to do than to look back later on your life and wonder what could’ve been. I haven’t practiced law in many years and I’m much happier!

What tips can you offer to aspiring comedians?
The best tip I can offer to anyone who wants to do comedy is to do it. Too many people are frozen by their own self-imposed barriers to take a chance on doing things out of the “normal.”  You don’t have to quit your job or school to try comedy–it’s a night time thing. In fact, you shouldn’t quit your day job for at least a few years so you can develop an act.

The key to succeeding is writing material and performing and then re-writing. You have to repeat this over and over again. It’s the same approach that all the comedians follow from the newer ones to the most famous.

I’d also recommend taking a stand up comedy class if you live in New York City or Los Angeles. They help teach you the basics of stand up and will help your development. But overall the number one thing is to get on stage as often as possible and perform!

For more on Dean, check out our 6Qs with him >>