Mardi Gras Casino has been host to the 2011 Mardi Gras Comedy Challenge all summer long. This contest, the largest of its kind, drew stand-up comics from all over to compete for the $5000.00 cash prize, and the chance to open with a 30 minute set for Paula Poundstone appearing right here at Mardi Gras Casino on October 22. Starting with open auditions August 12th and 13th, comedians filed through the curtain to stand in front of the microphone for a few minutes hoping to be one of the 40 that would advance to the Comedy Showcase held on August 18th and 19th. Those 40 competed in the Showcase hoping to advance as one of the 25 Semi-Finalists. Finals were held on October 6 with guest judge and headliner Bobby Collins, who brought the house down after the contestants took their best shots. These contestants were the winners of each of the 5 rounds of competition, and the 6th contestant was decided upon by online voting. They were Round 1 winner Gil T., Round 2 winner Jamal Hattar, Round 3 winner Gene Harding, Round 4 winner Bryan Hamilton, Round 5 winner A.Z. and the online voting winner was Amy Dingler.
Paula Poundstone is a seasoned professional comedienne who enjoys improvising with her crowd without a preset plan. She’s so good at it that people leave her shows thinking that the people she interacted with must have been part of the show! Originally from Sudbury, Massachusetts, by the time she was nineteen was traveling on a Greyhound bus across the country – stopping in at open mic nights at comedy clubs as she went. By 1990 she’d relocated to Los Angeles and had starred in several comedy specials for HBO, as well as appeared on Saturday Night Live when friend and mentor Robin Williams hosted the show. Paula’s first one-hour HBO special, “Cats, Cops, and Stuff.” made her the first woman to ever receive the Cable ACE for best standup comedy special. She also starred in a self-titled talk show series for HBO (for which she won her second Cable ACE Award for Best Program Interviewer, beating out other, more recognized names in that field.) In 1992, Poundstone forsook what she considered the ‘staid’ 5-minute standup set on late night talk-shows for something she thought would be more real with the audience and filed memorable field commentary of the Presidential Election for the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. This led to her own show on ABC, aptly named, “The Paula Poundstone Show”, and behind-the-scenes coverage of that year’s EMMY Awards for which she was critically acclaimed. During this time, she also became the first woman to perform at the White House Correspondents dinner. By the mid-90’s, Poundstone had shifted her performances from comedy clubs to performing arts centers and theatres where her interactions with the crowd became the stuff of legend. In 1996, Paula taped her second hour special for HBO, “Paula Poundstone Goes to Harvard,” – the first time that elite university has ever allowed it’s name to be used in the title of a television show. The Boston Globe also said about Paula, “You know Poundstone’s a great comic the way you know any fine performer when you see one—there’s a disarming ease in her craft, an immediate sense that she’s so quick on her feet you need never worry about the possibility of something going wrong.” It took Paula eight years to write her first book, There’s Nothing In This Book That I Meant To Saypublished November 2006. In 2007 BRAVO premiered Paula’s newest standup comedy special: “Paula Poundstone: Look What the Cat Dragged In” Paula has made numerous appearances on “Late Night with David Letterman;” ”Sesame Street;” “To Tell The Truth” and “Comic Relief.” Paula won an EMMY Award for her field pieces on PBS’s “Life & Times,” and is also the author, along with her high school math teacher, Faye Ruopp, of three math text books for children published by Heinemann Press: The Sticky Problem of Parallelogram Pancakes; Venn Can We Be Friends? and You Can’t Keep Slope Down Paula’s published several magazine articles, and for five years wrote a back-page column in Mother Jones. In 2009 Paula released her first comedy CD: I HEART JOKES: Paula Tells Them In Maine, 60 minutes of the smartest comedy recorded live at the sensational Stone Mountain Arts Center – because as Paula says, “It’s very hard to do it any other way.”
Jamal Hatter Wins Comedy Challenge & $5000.00 Cash Prize!
Jamal Hattar, truly the funniest of all the contestants won the event with zany zingers like his having been born in Palestine, and for those that went to public school, that’s Palestine, not Pakistan. Pakistan is 7-11. Palestine is 9-11! His mother is from Nazareth, he never met his father, and neither did she! That’s how they do it in Nazareth. Would you believe he was born in Bethlehem? He even has the long hair, but brown eyes because thanks to BP, brown is the new blue! He then told a story about how he got pulled over by a cop who told him he’d been waiting an hour and a half to catch a speeder. Jamal told the cop that he was sorry, and that he got there as fast as he could! He also joked that when he first came to Miami, he started learning Spanish, thinking it was English being that he was in the US! Come enjoy Jamal’s performance at 7:30 right before Paula goes on at 8 in the Grandstand just outside the Dawg House Sports Bar on October 22.
Fort Lauderdale's Biggest Comedy Event of Year
We’ll be at the ready with plenty of beverages and food items for you to enjoy! We have many food outlets throughout the casino for you to enjoy either before or after the event, and our drink specials that are as easy as 1-2-3! We have $1 twelve-ounce domestic draft beers, $2 seven ounce glasses of house wine, and $3 twelve ounce premium draft beers and well brand cocktails. These specials can be found throughout the entire casino, and be sure to try our October drink of the month, the Pink Awareness for just $5!
Don’t have tickets yet? If it isn’t too late, just come into the casino and purchase them at the Gift Shop or the Coffee Cart, both located near the main entrance. Otherwise, just click here https://secure.boxofficeavenue.com/MardiGrasCasino/Attractions.ashx and purchase your tickets online. Either way, don’t delay, this one of a kind event will sell out quickly if it hasn’t already! Be sure to join us for this night of fun and laughter, because you know it’s always a party at Mardi Gras!
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