Synopsis

The Muslims Are Coming! is a road movie, structured around a comedy tour of the South and Midwest of the United States. A traveling band of comedians will visit big cities, small towns, liberal enclaves, conservative hotbeds, rural unincorporated villages, and everything in between to explore the issue of Islamophobia. They’ll perform, meet the locals, and take the pulse of real Americans – not media outbursts that claim everyone is burning the Quran or delusional affirmations that claim everything is hunky dory. Islamophobia seems to bubble to the surface during every election season but what place does it hold outside of that? What do we still have to work on and where have Muslims found acceptance? We’ll answer all these questions through the ever-poignant, and frankly more entertaining, lens of comedy.

In every town the comedians will be able to perform, using the stage as a sounding board not only for punchlines but for social commentary. In this way, each stop will give us the opportunity to ask a particular question and examine an issue.  Pre- and post-show interaction with locals will confirm or deny the comedian’s socially conscious observations while expert commentary from pop culture icons and academic heavy weights will provide a depth that one-liners may not present.

We will meet the average person in each community we visit – not just the open-minded ones who attend our shows – but all types of folks through a series of activities such as setting up an  “Ask a Muslim a Question” booth at a flea market or truck pull.  The goal is to interact with people from a wide range of perspectives on the issue of Islam and Islamaphobia.

Below are more nuanced explanations of the comedians you can expect to see, the towns they’re traveling to, the events they’ll be involved in, and the experts that will round out the narrative thread.