Workshop and Panel
Drawn Together: On Comedy
Part of Drawn Together: World Building Through Radical Imagination
Thursday, Oct 23, 2025
Workshop*: 6–6:45 p.m., Floor 2, Koret Education Center
Program: 7–9 p.m., Floor 1, Phyllis Wattis Theater
*Please note, any program ticket holder is invited to join in for this pre-program workshop, first come, first served.
This program has tiered pricing. Please select the option that works best for you:
$0 – Member
$10 – General
$20 – Extra Support
$30 – Pay It Forward
Comedy is more than just entertainment — it’s a powerful force for truth, reflection, and connection. While it brings joy and laughter, comedy also has the unique ability to challenge societal norms, spark radical creativity, and build bridges between people. How can humor be a tool for fostering deeper belonging and bold imagination?
The evening begins at 6 p.m. with an intimate workshop led by Sarah Crowell and featuring the Belonging Resident Company‘s playback theater crew. The company is co-led and co-directed by Crowell and Sangita Kumar. BRC will also share playback theater as part of the theater program.
At 7 p.m. join Dr. Lanita Jacobs, author of To Be Real: Truth and Racial Authenticity in African American Standup Comedy, and comedian and actress Dulcé Sloan for a thought-provoking conversation on comedy as a catalyst for truth-telling, cultural insight, and collective joy. Together, they’ll explore how humor can open minds, inspire change, and help shape a more inclusive world — one laugh at a time.
About the Speakers
Lanita Jacobs is a professor of American studies & ethnicity and anthropology at USC. Over the past two-plus decades, she’s conducted multi-sited ethnographies of African American women’s hair care, African American children with Acquired or Traumatic Brain Injury (ABI/TBI), and African American standup comedy. Her fieldwork across sites of hair care, health care, and humor reveals how speakers socialize and construct identity, expertise, and other stances (e.g., empathy) pivotal to their everyday lives. Her most recent book, To Be Real: Truth and Racial Authenticity in African American Standup Comedy (Oxford University Press, 2023), explores Black standup comedy over the past decade as a stage for understanding why notions of racial authenticity — in essence, appeals to “realness” and “real Blackness” — emerge as a cultural imperative in African American culture. Lanita loves the sound of laughter, trees, and ocean breezes, and relishes fellowship with cool, kind folk.
Dulcé Sloan is an acclaimed comedian, actress, and writer celebrated for her sharp wit and fearless humor. She began her career as a stand-up comedian in Atlanta in 2009. In 2017, she joined The Daily Show with Trevor Noah as a correspondent, where her viral segments garnered widespread acclaim. Her Comedy Central Presents special premiered in 2019, which The New York Times included in their “Best Comedy” roundup that year.
Sloan voices Honeybee on FOX’s animated series The Great North and regularly appears on NPR’s Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me! In 2024, she released her memoir, Hello, Friends!, and co-hosts the podcast Hold Up.
This program is made possible with support from Google.org.
