In this special episode of the "What's So Funny About...?" Podcast, IrReverent: Spirituality, Comedy, and the Body Politic, brought to you by the Liberation Comedy Project, we talk with Benjamin-Shalom Rodriguez and Rev. Barbara Ann Michaels.
Benjamin-Shalom Rodriguez (he/they) is a queer, Mexican-Israeli-American writer, director, and comedian. Ben's currently developing his half-hour animated comedy, Jesus Versus Zeus, with Sony and completed season 2 of Stoned Breakups, which he created and hosts. He’s also an educator and filmmaker mentor with Edward James Olmos’ Latino Film Institute/Youth Cinema Project, where they teach students from underfunded schools how to make short films, and a charter member of the queer Latinx writers collective, The Clubhouse.
Benjamin is also the director of America's Next Top Immigrant (https://danceswithfilms.com/americas-next-top-immigrant/) and can be followed on Instagram at @lolohgosh and lologosh.
Reverend Barbara Ann Michaels, Jester of the Peace, (https://www.jesterofthepeace.com/), is an award-winning interfaith minister, performance artist, humorist, and author on a humanitarian humor mission.
She founded the House of Holy Humor, a secular congregation for the humor arts. All faiths and atheists are welcome. Love, art, and humor are her trifecta of tools for emotional well-being. House of Holy Humor delivers playfully serious participatory arts experiences that further love, connection, and healing internationally, often through collaboration with organizations.
Her background includes using audience-interactive art and performance to further community and corporate missions at events from galas to trade shows to festivals and parties.