2008 Finalist: Yuk Yuk’s Great Canadian Laugh Off.

SA Comedy Award Winner: Stand Up of the Year 2007.

Award-winning comedian, John Vlismas is one of South Africa’s most creative, prolific international comics.

John Vlismas has entered 2009 with a full schedule but typical low-key stealth, continuing to play to a large number of corporate audiences and readying an exciting film project for release in September 2009 and to be announced in due course. John’s international travel will be limited this year, due to local commitments. April sees his much-anticipated solo art exhibition, “Off The Reservation.” featuring 20 oil on canvas works at the Obert Contemporary Gallery In Melrose Arch. While the work is serious in nature, Vlismas has opted to open the exhibition on April 1st, determined to reference his comic roots.

His new one-man comedy show, POW, will premiere in June, visiting both Durban and Johannesburg.

While outspoken and sometimes controversial, Vlismas is a firm favourite in the corporate market, and spends over 80% of his stage time entertaining executives and their staff with tailored material, proving that he has the ability to adapt rapidly and appropriately for diverse audiences.

In 2008 he represented his country in Toronto, finishing in the top eight at the Yuk Yuk’s Great Canadian Laugh Off, and performed at Freedom Day celebrations in Dubai, at the request of the South African Business Council. John also performed his long anticipated one-man show, entitled Lucky Plebian, in June 2008.

Of the stand up comedians working the circuit in South Africa today, John has the widest international profile. From his 2002 performance in Berlin, at the Maulhelden Festival, to his shows in Dubai in 2006 and 2008; to 2007’s Shady Okes in London and at the Bulmer’s Comedy Festival in Dublin; to his appearance at The Comedy Store in London in 2005; and his four trips to Canada, where he has played at Montreal’s Just for Laughs Festival and remains the only South African comedian to be invited to return three times, having impressed in Club Soda, Globecom and Bubbling with Laughter, and performing by invitation in the prestigious showcase Talk of the Fest with Drew Carey; to his 2000 participation in the Melbourne Comedy Festival, where he enjoyed a sold out run of 28 shows in the highly regarded Best of the Edinburgh Festival showcase.

In 2006 he produced and headlined Have a Heart (HAH) in aid of Child Welfare Johannesburg. In 2002, he hosted and co-produced the largest ever stand up comedy event seen in South Africa, Laugh Out Loud; which played to 7000 people.

Not content with stand up and MC work, John also writes for publications and spent sixteen weeks in 2007 attempting to attract litigation for his weekly column attacking the local Idols judges, syndicated in Independent Newspapers. He also completed a year-long column in the Star Newspaper’s Business Report, called Funny Money with Ronnie Apteker, and wrote a monthly column for In London magazine, for 3 years.

John has joined up with academic friend and mentor, Jonathan Foster-Pedley to lecture on MBA “Creategy” Electives at the Graduate School Of Business, delivering his talk “The Shared World” on applied intuition.

He has scripted and performed for the FNB Life Start, and SAB Brand Power national road shows, Arts Alive festival each year and regularly performs at his comedy club, The Comedy Underground, now SA’s longest running regular comedy event.

John has enjoyed much local success with his previous one-man shows, all of which he wrote, directed and produced: Whacked in 2001, Aggravated Assault in 1999, Man in Black in 1998, and Mr Ballistic in 1997. In 2001, his two-hander with Bevan Cullinan, Grinder confirmed his ability to sell tickets. The esteem in which John is held by the comedy industry is evidenced by such events as his role in Steven Wright’s South African tour as support act, and his performance for SA Tourism at the Sydney Art Museum in 2004.

http://heathergold.com

Heather Gold is the turkey baster love child of Sarah Silverman and Rachel Maddow and tours North America as a comedian, speaker, interactive solo performer and social artist.

She brings insights and authentic conversations to companies, organizations and conferences like Google, SXSW Interactive, BlogHer, AIGA, Social Venture Network, Forum One’s Marketing and Online Communities Conference and Overlap 08.

Heather is the creator of the hit interactive show “I Look Like an Egg, But I Identify as a Cookie,” which ran for a year in San Francisco, showed at Ars Nova in New York and was selected by The Oakland Tribune as “Best of the Bay Area.”

Driven to comedy by law school, Gold never does the same set twice. Her unique style—raw and participatory, inflected by confessional politics—is a reflection of her unorthodox artistic path: studies at Yale and Northwestern Law, training at Groundlings, plus years soaking up Hollywood and the geek culture of the Net and Silicon Valley. Heather worked the web since it’s earliest days in 1995, influencing her innovative form of comedy which involves the audience whenever possible, drawing them out and threading and connecting ideas and people.

Heather hosted Austin Gay Pride, has written for Alan Cumming, and hosts her own talk show podcast, The Heather Gold Show which features bold conversations about politics, relationships and big life questions, mingling web celebrities with the avant-garde, with guests including Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake, blogger Merlin Mann, and twitter founder Ev Williams. boingboing calls her “one of our favorite comedians.”

Heather speaks and performs for venues and colleges and conferences across North America and contributes to media like The San Jose Mercury News, Tech TV, The Learning Channel, The Toronto Globe & Mail, and CBC Radio. She’s been quoted and covered in places like WIRED, Salon and NPR. Heather is one of the creators of EqualityCamp, which brings techies and activists together to organize the current gay marriage movement.

Her recent marriage was recognized, for now, by California and, more enduringly, by Marie Claire. She has pledged to never use the words “leverage” or “synergize” unless it’s for a very important lifesaving purpose.

You can follow her online at twitter.com/heathr.