A local man with the gift of laughter is sharing it with those who may need it most. Ed Greenberg, who has lived in Malibu for 10 years, is an accomplished actor, director and seasoned improvisational comedian. He started and runs a nonprofit that brings comedy to disenfranchised and challenged communities. The program is called Laughter For A Change and it started after Greenberg was tasked with bringing comedy to a most unlikely place—Rwanda.
Greenberg got his start in the comedy business while a student at UC Berkeley. He became a member of the satirical, edgy improvisational review, “The Committee,” under the direction of Del Close, who went on to become an icon of improvisational theater and coached some of the best-known comedic actors of the late 20th century.
“The first time I got on stage, he and I connected,” Greenberg reminisced. “He loved my work and soon afterward said, ‘If you’re interested I’ll hire you into The Committee as a member of the company,’ which began my life in improvisational theater and comedy.”
Greenberg went on to direct at the legendary Second City in Chicago, which is often a training stage for comedians who’ve gone on to Saturday Night Live. He has taught acting and comedy at UCLA and USC.
In 2007, Greenberg was introduced to representatives from the Rwandan film industry. They came to the United States looking for guidance in re-energizing their country after the horrific genocide of 1994. He said the Rwandans were trying to bring their East African country “out of that unspeakable darkness into light.
“They had the insight to think, ‘We can’t do endless documentaries about the genocide and move forward fast enough,’” he recalled. Eventually, he said, they realized, “We’ve got to do comedy.” So the Rwandans turned to Greenberg for help. “I never forgot what one said: ‘I’d like you to come to Rwanda to help my people learn to laugh again.’”
Through a cultural envoy program at the State Department, Greenberg was sent to Kilgali as a comedy mentor to conduct workshops so young theater artists and filmmakers could learn how to do comedies. One hundred-twenty people auditioned for 20 spots in the Rwandan workshop.
“I was told they would all speak English,” Greenberg laughed. As it turned out, not all of them did.
“I went to Rwanda not knowing what I would find there,” he described. “I had theater games and experienced the power of them.”
With a big communication gap, Greenberg played the Rwandans a DVD he thought was funny: “I Love Lucy,” the chocolate factory episode.
“It knocked them out,” he said. “There’s this universality—everybody gets that. I thought, ‘We’re going to be fine.’ They were so ready to have the permission to be creative. There were people there whose parents had been murdered.”
With roughly 800,000 people killed, “There was no one in Rwanda who hadn’t been directly affected,” he said. “It was life changing—for them and me.”
Returning to California, Greenberg founded his community outreach program, Laughter For A Change. He and a stable of sketch comedy actors visit veterans with PTSD, seniors, hospitals, at-risk youth, former gang bangers, rehabilitation centers and communities that might be short on laughs and could use more.
“We bring people together through play,” he described. “In the end we all share the same humanity.”
The group puts on what Greenberg calls educational, but fun workshops using community members as participants.
“Comedy is magic. I feel blessed that that’s what I do and am able to facilitate it with other people—to build community,” he said. “The idea that [by] working together we can inform an intelligence that is beyond one person—collaboration, healing trust. Positive motivators in a safe space become a model for how people can interact in the most positive way.”
Greenberg said he also benefits from the work: “I consider myself very fortunate to have a career in an arena where I spend time laughing and having fun.
“The lessons I’ve learned—how to facilitate creativity, communication and trust—have been immensely beneficial to my life, and the ability to give that back to individuals and communities who are in great need of it is to me a blessing,” Greenberg said.
For more information or to make a donation go to laughterforachange.org.
