Mohanad Elshieky

In 2014, the ongo­ing con­flict in his native Beng­hazi sud­den­ly ren­dered home unsafe for Mohanad Elshieky. ​“At some point, there was no air­port to even go back to,” Elshieky says of this tur­bu­lent time in his life. What was sup­posed to be a six week stint in the states became a decade-long res­i­den­cy. For­tu­nate­ly for Elshieky, here in the U.S. he’s made a home and a name for himself.

Port­land was Elshieky’s first res­i­dence here. A Depart­ment of State exchange pro­gram brought him to Port­land State Uni­ver­si­ty ini­tial­ly. Two years into his enroll­ment, in a pub­lic speak­ing class, Elshieky took on standup at the behest of a pro­fes­sor who noticed his knack for adding jokes to his speech­es. ​“I was study­ing busi­ness, don’t ask me why, I have no idea,” Elshieky says. ​“So I took a standup com­e­dy class in late 2015 or so.” In just six weeks of class Elshieky had his first four min­utes of mate­r­i­al. As a stu­dent of com­e­dy Elshieky proved to be a quick learn­er; only three years lat­er he would make his nation­al tele­vi­sion debut on Conan. 

His prowess was bol­stered by a sense of com­mu­ni­ty. ​“That scene was very, very sup­port­ive,” Elshieky says. ​“I’m very hap­py that I got to start in Port­land, because it real­ly pushed me.” Sev­ered from his social ties back home, open mics were a chance to break the ice just as much as they were a chance to break big. Elshieky found com­mon ground with those who were at clubs for the same rea­son, so per­form­ing each night just became an excuse to hang out with like-mind­ed peo­ple. As Elshieky puts it: ​“Like sure, I’m writ­ing mate­r­i­al, but I just want to see my friends.”

Things came fast for Elshieky in 2019. The afore­men­tioned Conan appear­ance was a land­mark moment (“I cried after”), and very soon Elshieky found him­self liv­ing in New York City. Appre­ci­a­tion for the Big Apple came slow­ly. ​“The first year I hat­ed it,” says Elshieky on his new begin­nings. To start over once again in a city where he knew no one was a famil­iar affair, but that didn’t make it eas­i­er. He was a small fish in a much big­ger pond and, as you would pre­dict, the unfurl­ing glob­al pan­dem­ic didn’t help his case. “ ​‘Why the hell am I here’ ” and “ ​‘Why did I come here’ “ are just two vari­a­tions of a ques­tion Elshieky asked him­self while he toughed it out.

How­ev­er gru­el­ing this tran­si­tion was, Elshieky felt secure. His late-night debut was a foot in the door for his standup career, but keep­ing his oth­er foot in pro­duc­tion work was the rea­son for the move. ​“I got a job offer as a dig­i­tal pro­duc­er for Full Frontal with Saman­tha Bee,” Elshieky says. This was the first in a series of cred­its to his name since leav­ing Port­land that also includes writ­ing for Lovett Or Leave It and NPR’s Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! Elshieky is com­mit­ted to writ­ing jokes for a liv­ing whether or not he gets to tell them.

Elshieky’s show cred­its as a com­ic were not the cre­den­tials they were before. Get­ting booked in New York is more about mak­ing your­self seen; ​“it’s all about ​‘the hang’ “ as Elshieky describes it. Just putting him­self out there, whether on stage or as a face in the crowd, was how Elshieky made new con­nec­tions. He was on his way to actu­al­ly enjoy­ing the city. ​“Now I love New York,” says the born-again New York­er . ​“I can’t imag­ine myself liv­ing any­where else, but at the time I was like ​‘this is a big mis­take’ “. Through com­e­dy Elshieky became an NYC convert.

To have his life in Libya uproot­ed was undoubt­ed­ly a har­row­ing expe­ri­ence. Elshieky’s first few years in Amer­i­ca were rife with uncer­tain­ty about what to do and when he would be able to return home. Apply­ing for asy­lum sta­tus was a wait­ing game that seemed to last for­ev­er. ​“It took me a while to even get my asy­lum inter­view,” Elshieky says. ​“So from 2014 to 2017 I was like ​‘I don’t know, we’ll see’.”

Elshieky doesn’t shy away from acknowl­edg­ing the tumult in his home­town as well. His jour­nal­is­tic pur­suits in Beng­hazi, which includ­ed host­ing a comedic polit­i­cal call-in radio show, made him a tar­get of Islam­ic groups. So offend­ing were jokes made on air that the sta­tion itself was burned down. Elshieky’s home has been searched and his fam­i­ly has been threat­ened. On at least two occa­sions, Elshieky has been inter­ro­gat­ed, each time in Libya and the Unit­ed States respec­tive­ly. The first time was by an Islam­ic mili­tia regard­ing his religious/​political affil­i­a­tions. The sec­ond was by Amer­i­can bor­der patrol agents who accused him of being an ille­gal immigrant.

Both are brought up in Elshieky’s standup. In spite of all his strife, Elshieky leav­ens his sto­ries with dead­pan humor. The image of Beng­hazi as a bat­tle­ground looms large, espe­cial­ly in the eyes of Amer­i­can audi­ences who know noth­ing beyond the events of 2011-onward. Elshieky doesn’t want his own per­son­al accounts dur­ing this peri­od to mis­rep­re­sent his time in Libya as a whole, nor does he want to exag­ger­ate just how direct­ly the con­flict affect­ed his life out­side of a few notable events. ​“To me, none of these things are sad, they’re just my life, and not even my whole life,” Elshieky says, quick to point out that he lived his own way inde­pen­dent from the vio­lence as he worked and went to col­lege before and dur­ing the civ­il war.

Elshieky doesn’t want to make his strug­gle his whole iden­ti­ty either. In fact, he’d rather not dwell on that. ​“I know a lot of comics glam­or­ize the suf­fer­ing. I’ve actu­al­ly tried not to do suf­fer­ing anymore.” 

Fol­low Mohanad

• Web­site — mohanadelshieky​.com
• Insta­gram — @mohanad.elshieky
• Tik­Tok — @mohanad.elshieky91
• Face­book — Face​book​.com/​M​o​h​a​n​a​d​E​l​s​h​i​eky91
• Youtube — Youtube​.com/​@​M​o​h​a​n​a​d​E​l​s​hieky
• Link­tree — link​tr​.ee/​m​o​h​a​n​a​d​.​e​l​s​hieky

Mohanad can be seen and heard:

• Spe­cials
  • Conan
  • The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
  • Don’t Tell Comedy
• Pod­casts (avail­able on your favorite pod­cast player)
  • You Could Do That on Television
  • I’m Sor­ry