The Black Women In Comedy Laff Fest

Hollie Harper, Joanna Briley, and Chaundra Daniels visit Friends Like Us and discuss the importance of black women in comedy, The Black Women In Comedy Laff Fest For Juneteenth and more with host Marina Franklin. Hollie Harper is a comedy nerd from South Jersey. She is currently the creator and co-exec producer of Hella Late! with Hollie Harper on BRIC TV and a co-host of the nationally trending Twitter Storytelling Chat “BlerdDating.” Hella Late! with Hollie Harper was recently in the 2021 NYC Web Fest where she was nominated as Best Actress. Hollie was a semi-finalist in the 2019 NBC Standup Competition and has been featured on NY1, and in Black Enterprise Magazine, Thrive Global, Confessional Magazine and Black San Diego Magazine. Her popular sketch comedy show AMERICAN CANDY has played the Comic Strip, Gotham Comedy Club, BAM Café as well as the Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival. Time Out Chicago named them one of the five groups to watch. Hollie is a regular host for West Side Comedy Club in NYC and works with Gold Comedy and Stand Up Girls, two programs that empower young women by teaching them standup comedy. She was recently the talent coordinator and casting for “Blood Lassi” on Spotify, written by Pratima Mani, and moderated the panel for the Emmy Award winning, WOC editing team of Black Lady Sketch Show for The Black TV and Film Collective. She is also the Creative Consultant for the very successful Black Women in Comedy Laff Fest. Joanna Briley Brooklyn born, Connecticut raised. Hilarity ensued. Joanna’s work for the MTA made her one of the friendliest Token Booth Clerks and her love of stand up and being a token booth clerk aka Station Agent, allowed her to write and produce “Swipe This: My Life in Transit!” to critical acclaim. Joanna is also the proud creator of the Black Women in Comedy Laff Fest which was created in 2018 and will have her fourth festival this June 14th-June 18th 2023 in various venues throughout NYC.  Chaundra Daniels is currently the Director of Career Services at Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology providing guidance and structure for a range of student services offered by career services and overseeing all office operations on career development strategies. She is a former Project Manager working on career development projects for Fortune 500 companies such as Colgate, the Federal Reserve Bank, McDonald's, Pepsi,  Starbucks, and Verizon. Chaundra is the Principal Consultant of  Monarch Productions, LLC, a boutique consulting firm that provides coaching and consulting sessions, workshops, and speaking engagements for individuals and businesses. Known as “The Humor Consultant”, Chaundra is an enthusiastic and resourceful communicator. The Executive Director of Strategic Partnerships & Planning for the 4th Annual Black Women in Comedy Festival, Chaundra is also the producer of the BFF (Beautiful, Fabulous, and Funny) Comedy Show,  a monthly comedy residency that donates partial proceeds to the designated benefactor, TechCore2, a Philadelphia based STEM program whose mission is to empower youth through tech industry training to build confidence and to pursue a technology career path.  She is often sought out to facilitate presentations and host events. An effective communicator,  she uses humor as a tool, offering a unique communication style with the ability to successfully engage and motivate audiences through critical thinking.  She has a fond appreciation of butterflies and uses their symbolic nature of “transformation” as part of her message providing inspiration to her audiences. Always hosted by Marina Franklin - One Hour Comedy Special: Single Black Female ( Amazon Prime, CW Network), TBS's The Last O.G, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Hysterical on FX, The Movie Trainwreck, Louie Season V, The Jim Gaffigan Show, Conan O'Brien, Stephen Colbert, HBO's Crashing, and The Breaks with Michelle Wolf.