Maz Jobrani has been a comedy star for nearly 25 years now, with key roles on network sitcoms including “Superior Donuts” and “The Knights of Prosperity.” He’s also had several successful stand-up specials, including “Immigrant” (2017) and “Pandemic Warrior” (2021).
He will be performing three shows this weekend at the Den Theatre in Wicker Park. While he’s intent on serving up plenty of laughter on life as an immigrant, overcoming the pandemic and his wife and family, this time around he will also spend a few minutes at the end of each show discussing a decidedly serious topic with the audience: the massive protests currently taking place in his native land of Iran.
“In September, there was a 22-year-old girl named Mahsa Amini who was walking in the streets of Tehran, and her hair was out of her hijab just a little bit,” explains Jobrani. “The morality police stopped her, arrested her and proceeded to kill her. That’s what set off the protests in Iran and around the world. Millions of people have been protesting and, in the protests, the Islamic regime — which is what we call it — have been brutal.
“They’ve killed around 500 people, including around 50 minors, and they have imprisoned around 15,000 whom they have started to execute just recently. If you’re on my Instagram, you will see sometime around September when these protests started, I feel like I went from being a comedian to being an activist.”
Jobrani, 50, fled with his family from Iran at the age of 6 in 1978, starting life over in Northern California. He quickly embraced America’s freedoms, “falling in love” with Eddie Murphy’s comedy at the age of 10, with a determination to pursue a comedy career. While he felt “the usual immigrant pressure of becoming a doctor, lawyer or engineer,” he finally made his bold leap into entertainment at age 26.
“I studied political science in college, and I got into a Ph.D. program intending to be a professor,” says Jobrani. “But meanwhile I wanted to keep doing comedy. I was 26 years old and I decided to take an improv class, which led to a stand-up comedy class, and that just led to everything else.
“I became a regular at the Comedy Store [in Los Angeles] and then a regular at the Laugh Factory and I started going up every night. Eventually I started touring, and I’ve had the chance to see the world because of comedy. I’ve done stand-up in Australia, in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, you name it. I still have to go to Africa.”
While his current U.S. dates take him to American cities including San Diego, Denver, Houston and Raleigh in addition to The Den in Chicago, he’s also excited for a Mar. 11 date where he and fellow comic Mo Amer will be playing a sold-out Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi.
Jobrani also has good-natured fun discussing his life as a husband and father in his act, while treading carefully to avoid making them feel mocked.
“I like to joke that growing up, I had to play with the kids of my parents’ friends, and now I have to play with the parents of my kids’ friends. I poke fun at what a different world it is now with these kids than it was for us,” he notes. “My son is 14 and like every 14-year-old boy, he’s a little spaced out. My daughter is 12 and she’s focused like the CIA, FBI and CSI combined.”
