Maysoon Zayid

Maysoon Zayid is an actress and professional standup comedian, who received her BFA in acting from Arizona State University. She is the co-founder and co-executive producer of the New York Arab American Comedy Festival and can be seen on Comedy Central's The Watch List, PBS's America at a Crossroads: Muslim Comics Stand Up, and in Adam Sandler's You Don't Mess With Zohan. In the fall of 2006, Maysoon debuted her one-woman show Little American Whore at LA's Comedy Central Space which was produced and directed by the legendary Kathy Najimy. In 2008, her screenplay LAW was chosen for the Sundance Screenwriters Lab and is now slated to begin production with Maysoon as the lead in the fall of 2009.

As a professional comedian, Maysoon has performed stand-up in top New York clubs, and has toured extensively in the USA as well as Europe, Africa, And the Middle East. She has also appeared on As The World Turns, Law & Order, MTV, NBC Nightly News, CNN, ABC's 20/20, The New York Times, and WashingtonPost.com.

Maysoon is a graduate of The Hala Salaam Maksoud Foundation for Arab-American Leadership and a delegate from the great state of NJ to the 2008 Democratic National Convention. She spends 3 months a year in Palestine where she runs Maysoon's Kids, a scholarship and wellness program for disabled and wounded refugee children and orphans.

For more information about Maysoon go to www.maysoon.com.