Humor and the Disability Experience: A Stand-Up Comedy Show

Mean Dave is a Californian comedian from the Bay Area with a rock and roll style for any occasion or function. With a wild, intelligent approach to material about modern day life, Mean Dave has performed regularly at San Jose Improv, San Francisco Punchline, LA Comedy Store, Tommy T's in Pleasanton, and all kinds of shows and events all over.

Awkwardly hilarious, Loren Kraut’s unorthodox style of comedy juxtaposes playfulness with deeply dark humor. She turns grim subject matter, like depression and suicide on its ear, presenting the bleakness of mental illness with unexpected wit and levity. Ever the outsider, Kraut gives us a glimpse into her weird, silly, and often tragic world that, in the end, is surprisingly life affirming.  Kraut is also a playwright—writing about family, aging and suicide. Her new solo show A Bit Touched, premiering in March 2017, revolves around her OCD and her cat.

Michael Beers has been performing as a stand up comic for about four years. He started out doing small gigs at open mics in the Missoula Montana area getting stage time between hundreds of college bands you've probably never heard of and whose members will probably become accountants once they sober up after college. He then graduated to more glamorous gigs playing mostly his own family reunions and some very lucrative performances at retirement homes, which coincidently were his first paying jobs as a comic (2 cookies and a glass of milk). A large portion Beer's act is based on his own life growing up in Montana with his mother and his three sisters, their dogs, and a disability. He also ventures into some social and political commentary. Beers is currently traveling around the country performing mostly at conferences. He won the Norman G. Brooks comedy competition at the Hollywood Improv in 2005 and was the winner of the 2003 Brickwall amateur comedy competition in Spokane, WA. Michael Beers  has been performing professionally as a stand-up comic since 2003. 

James LeBrecht has over 35 years of experience as a film and theater sound designer and mixer, author, producer and disability rights activist. LeBrecht is the founder of Berkeley Sound Artists (BSA), an audio postproduction house, located in Berkeley, California.  Jim’s work as an advocate for the rights of people with disabilities began in high school as a member of Disabled in Action, a pioneering disability rights group. While at college in the mid 1970s at UC, San Diego, he helped found the Disabled Students Union. Jim is currently a board member at the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, a leading organization working for the rights of the disabled through education, legislation and litigation. A true believer in the power of film and television to open minds and doors, LeBrecht has been hard at work on disability focused media projects. Currently, with Nicole Newnham, he is co-producing and co-directing Crip Camp, a feature length documentary about Camp Jened, a summer camp for the “physically handicapped” that Jim attended as a teenager in the early 1970’s.