Dean Obeidallah

Born in the great State of New Jersey, Dean's comedy comes in large part from his unique background of being the son of a Palestinian father and a Sicilian mother. Dean, an award winning comedian who was at one time a practicing attorney, has appeared on ABC's "The View," Comedy Central's "Axis of Evil" Comedy special and is the co-creator and co-producer of Comedy Central.com's critically acclaimed Internet series "The Watch List," featuring a cast of all Middle Eastern-American comedians performing stand up and sketch comedy.

Dean has also appeared on numerous international and national programs including CNN's "American Morning" and "The Situation Room," PBS' "Newshour with Jim Lehrer," Air America Radio, "Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen," ABC News, HD's "Dan Rather Reports," NPR, Fox News Radio, ABC's "20/20," "Al Jazeera," "Democracy Now with Amy Goodman" and CNN International's "Inside the Middle East." In addition, he has been featured in numerous publications including Time magazine, Newsweek, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times.

Dean is proud to have received the first annual "Bill Hicks Spirit Award" for "thought provoking comedy" (named after the late comedian Bill Hicks) from the NY Underground Comedy Festival and the Hicks' Family.

He also co-created the comedy show "Stand up for Peace" along with Jewish comic Scott Blakeman which they perform at colleges across the country in support of peace in the Middle East and fostering understanding between Arab and Jewish-Americans. (www.standupforpeace.com) His one-man show, "I Come in Peace," was an official selection of the 2006 NY International Fringe Festival.

Dean is proud to be the co-founder and co-executive producer of the annual NY Arab-American Comedy Festival which will be holding its fifth annual Festival in January 2008. In addition to performing comedy throughout the US, Dean has performed in the Middle East in Beirut, Haifa, Dubai and Ramallah.