Award-winning political comedian Blakeman to perform at UNL

Scott Blakeman, an award-winning political comedian, will speak at 7 p.m. March 27 at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He will perform in Room 25 of the College of Business Administration Building, 12th and R streets. The event is free and open to the public, and is sponsored by UNL's Norman and Bernice Harris Center for Judaic Studies.

Blakeman has made more than 30 national television appearances, including Comedy Central's "Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn," and NBC's "Sunday Today." He was the warm-up comedian for the "Late Show with David Letterman" and the CBS comedy series "Welcome To New York." He can be heard regularly on National Public Radio.

Blakeman co-founded Standup for Peace: The Two Comedian Solution to Middle East Peace with Palestinian-American comedian Dean Obeidallah. He was a regular political humorist on "USA Live" on the USA Network, and was the host of "Headliners," a television pilot that took a comedic look at the week in review. He was a writer/performer on the ABC late-night series "Where's The Party?" and has appeared on A&E's "Evening at the Improv" and "Caroline's Comedy Hour," as well as Comedy Central's "Comics Only."

For the past 21 years, Blakeman has taught a stand-up comedy workshop at The New School in New York City. The class has been featured on WABC-TV, PBS, The Village Voice and Newsday, and was the subject of a documentary film for Touchstone Pictures.

Among his many commercial appearances, Blakeman received national acclaim as the straight actor who played the part of a gay man in the history-making Ikea television commercial, which is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Television and Radio, and was named one of the 50 best commercials of all time by Entertainment Weekly magazine.