Tissa Hami, a Muslim born in Iran, and Tapan Trivedi, a Hindu born in India, have a lot in common. Both belong to religions that are little understood in much of America, where they have chosen to make their home.
And both want to make you laugh with – not at – them.
They are two-fifths of the Sacramento-based Coexist? Comedy Tour that will open a four-weekend stand at the Geery Theater tonight. The other comics are John Ross, a Christian; Sammy Obeid, a Buddhist; and Keith Lowell Jensen, an atheist.
"When I started, when I got very short sets in clubs with mostly male stand-up comics, it was very much about being a Muslim and being a Muslim woman," Hami said recently in a telephone interview from her home in San Francisco. "I'll really never not be the female Muslim comedian on a show," she said.
Hami had worked on Wall Street in New York City and in the admissions office at Harvard University in Boston before she became a stand-up comic about six years ago – after 9/11. "Obviously, that was a big event for all of us, but as a Middle Eastern person, it was especially difficult. I felt it from various levels, as an American whose country had been attacked, as a person from the Middle East where the attack originated, and as an American of Middle Eastern descent who was somehow suddenly suspicious.
"It remided me of when I was a kid and the Iranian hostage crisis happened, and all the hatred toward people of my background.
"Then (after 9/11), watching all the Middle Eastern 'experts' on TV, who were all these white guys and an occasional white woman, I wanted to make my voice heard."
Initially, Hami said, "I was terrified. A year after 9/11? Yes, terrified. One, I was terrified the way any new comedian would be terrified, to try to go onstage and make a roomful of strangers laugh. On top of that, I was doing it as a veiled Muslim woman, in the city where 9/11 had happened. I didn't know if (the audience) would boo me, 'stone' me with beer bottles – I didn't know what would happen."
That's right, Hami went on stage veiled. "My concept originally was to do the veiled woman as a character and then to take the veil off and do the rest of it as me, the stand-up comic. But I wasn't an actor and I couldn't pull it off. So, I started out being veiled and half-way through, I'd unveil and continue.
"I couldn't do that in my home country. When I was in Iran, I had to be veiled – but here I can. I want to show that I'm the same person with or without the veil on."
Hami, 35, appeared in a PBS documentary, "Stand Up: Muslim American Comedians Come of Age," and recently was invited to appear on "The View" on ABC-TV, where she was interviewed by co-hosts Joy Behar and Sherri Shepherd. (The segment can be seen on YouTube. There's a link from www.coexistcomedy.com to the tape.) Despite her experience onstage, Hami said she was "pretty nervous" beforehand. "This was live and this was it," she said. "If I screwed something up or was just an idiot, that's what people would forever know me as."
Early in her career, Hami appeared on an all-ages show with half-a-dozen other comics (male and female) at a Starbuck's in suburban Boston – not every gig is a big gig. Afterward, she said, "A boy, about 7 or 8, came up and stuck out his hand and said, 'You were the best comedian on the show.' He didn't say I was the best woman comedian on the show or the best ethnic comedian on the show, just the best comedian.
"That's the reaction I want."
Trivedi, 31, was co-founder of the Coexist? company, along with Sacramentan Jensen. The idea came to them one night, backstage at a comedy club.
"We were laughing that here we were, an atheist and a Hindu, about to go onstage before a roomful of Christians and tell jokes," Jensen said. "It hit us what a cool thing that actually was."
Trivedi recently taped an episode of the Showtime cable series "Comedy Slam," which is hosted by comic Russell Peters. Peters is an ethnic Indian who was born in Toronto and is a major stand-up star in much of the world.
"He is probably the most famous comic that you have never heard of," Trivedi said in a recent telephone interview. "He talks about all the minorities that nobody else talks about, and he reaches audiences that haven't had a comic of their own. Thanks to him, when you say, 'I'm an Indian comedian,' they don't ask, as they used to, 'What do you bring to the stage besides the accent?' "
Trivedi also credits Peters with opening opportunities for Indian comedians, including corporate shows and private performances, such as at weddings. "Indian people mostly spend money on events like a major birthday party or a wedding," Trivedi said. "Usually, it's a kind of tight-fisted community, except when it comes to these special events."
Peters helped make it possible for comics like Trivedi to make remarks like that. He also helped make it possible to talk about similarities and differences among cultures. Differences such as religion.
"Humor is the best way to talk about religion," Trivedi said. "There's still some stigma associated with talking about it. It's still a touchy subject. That's one reason why we formed the group.
"Once you laugh at something, you've admitted its existence. It makes it real. It puts it out there. You start to deal with it."
His relationship with Jensen has been revealing," Trivedi said. "Where I grew up, there weren't that many atheists, period. In the beginning, getting to know Keith, it was like, 'Oh, my god, I can't believe him.' But I've come to understand where he's coming from, and I admire that he has gone ahead and hit the delete key on what used to be a very big part of his life." Jensen was born into a Catholic family but abandoned religion at 16.
Forming Coexist? was "a leap of faith," Trivedi said. "Keith would disagree, but it was."
Coexist? Comedy Tour
WHEN: Opens at 8 tonight and continues at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through June 21
WHERE: Geery Theatre, 2130 L St., Sacramento
TICKETS: $10 general
INFORMATION: (916) 470-9393, www.coexistcomedy.com
Call The Bee's Jim Carnes, (916) 321-1130.