This week, we revisit our Faith is Funny program with four comedians—Gibran Saleem, Hari Kondabolu, Peter Sagal, and Kate Sidley—who discuss the role of religion in comedy. This conversation originally took place June 23, 2025 and was recorded live at the Studebaker Theater.
This episode is presented in conjunction with the American Writers Museum’s forthcoming exhibit American Prophets: Writers, Religion, and Culture. This exhibit and programming series explores the profound ways writing reflects and influences our understanding of religion. American Prophets opens November 21, 2025.
About the comedians:
GIBRAN SALEEM is a writer and comedian whose work spans broadcast and digital platforms. Born in North Carolina to traditional Pakistani immigrants, he was raised in a Muslim household and began performing stand-up in New York while completing a graduate degree in psychology. A semi-finalist for the Humanitas New Voices Fellowship and alum of NYU’s Episodic Writers’ Room, he has also toured with Hasan Minhaj, appeared on FX, ABC, and Hulu, and continues to develop screenwriting projects and perform stand-up across the U.S.
HARI KONDABOLU is a comedian, writer & podcaster based in Brooklyn, NY. He has been described by The NY Times as “one of the most exciting political comics in stand-up today.” He has performed on The Late Show with David Letterman, Conan, Jimmy Kimmel Live, John Oliver’s NY Stand-Up Show, @Midnight & has his own half-hour special on Comedy Central. A former writer & correspondent on the Chris Rock produced FX TV show Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell. In 2017, he released his critically acclaimed documentary The Problem with Apu on truTV.
PETER SAGAL is the host of NPR’s Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, the most listened-to hour on public radio. A playwright, screenwriter and journalist, he is also the author of The Book of Vice: Naughty Things and How To Do Them and The Incomplete Book of Running, a memoir about the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and other adventures while running long distances. On TV, Peter has made appearances on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and other shows, and hosted Constitution USA with Peter Sagal for PBS and National Geographic Explorer for the NatGeo Channel.
KATE SIDLEY is a comedy writer and performer originally from Cleveland, Ohio. She writes for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and her work can be seen in the New Yorker, McSweeney’s, and Reductress. Kate has multiple Emmy-nominations, a Peabody Award, a Writers Guild Award and, thanks to her years of Catholic school, a visceral aversion to plaid wool skirts. Her forthcoming book is called How to Be a Saint: An Extremely Weird and Mildly Sacrilegious History of The Catholic Church’s Biggest Names.
American Prophets is supported by a grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. through its Religion and Cultural Institutions Initiative.
