August 2, 2007 (Minneapolis, MN & Boulder, CO) - Comedian Mark Whitney's one man show, "Bad Dad: A Comedy of Errers!", is winning awards on the 2007 U.S. Fringe Festival Circuit.
At the 2007 Capital Theatre Festival in Washington, D.C. audiences July 25th-29th voted Bad Dad "Best Solo Performance"
Whitney and his wife, Julie, travel next to The Minnesota Fringe Festival in Minneapolis and the Boulder International Fringe Festival. Whitney will appear in The Minnesota Fringe August 5th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th, and in the Boulder International Fringe Festival August 17th, 19th, 20th, 22nd, 24th, and 25th.
"I’ve wanted to be a comedian since I was 15,” says the 48 year-old Whitney, who won the 2005 San Francisco Comedy Conventions. “But, you get married young. Kids are relentless. Give ‘em one meal they want another.”
In 1988, a jury convicted Whitney for lying to a bank to get $2 million to start his chain of Ben & Jerry’s Franchises. He spent 700 days in five Federal prisons. It's this experience that inspired "Bad Dad: A Comedy of Errers!" The show examines the conflicts between Tolerance and Zero Tolerance; the Golden Rule and the Rule of Law.
“You could be a salesman dumping dirt to sell a vacuum or a prosecutor dumping dirt to secure a verdict or, let’s say, a President dumping dirt on the Constitution to sell a Zero Tolerance War on Terror,” says Whitney. “We’re all three selling solutions to alleviate the same fears we’re stoking. Because fearful people are like, 'Here’s my money! Here’s my freedom!'”
For more information, see http://www.baddad.net, http://www.fringefestival.org/
