Fawad Siddiqui
Encyclopedia
Fawad Siddiqui is an American actor, improvisational comedian, journalist and cartoonist. He has appeared on the USA Network
television show Burn Notice
alongside Bruce Campbell
and Jeffrey Donovan
, in the George Clooney
film The Men Who Stare At Goats
with Ewan McGregor
[1], and in the indie films The Bait and The Festival of Lights—starring Jimi Mistry
and Aidan Quinn
. He also has a role in the upcoming film CO2—starring Charlie Murphy
, Mike Tyson
and Faizon Love
—and currently has a recurring role on the fifth season of the Lifetime Network series Army Wives
. He will also be appearing in the upcoming season of the FX/The 101 Network series Damages—starring Glenn Close
and Rose Byrne
--as the shady Afghan information broker Shahbaz Gul opposite Dylan Baker
, and in the French comedy Bienvenue à Bord—opposite popular French comedic actors Franck Dubosc and Valerie Lemercier
, set to be released in October 2011.
Siddiqui has also appeared in commercials for Home Depot, Capital One
, Math Wizard, Danbury Hospital
and others. He regularly performs with such South Florida improvisational troupes as Laughing Gas and Impromedy, with the Improv Playhouse in Libertyville, Illinois, and with the Steel City Improv Theater in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.[2]
Siddiqui is also a cartoonist, having created a new field of live illustration of improvised theater shows, which he does for improv theaters throughout the country.
in 2003 with a degree in English and Communication. After graduation, he moved to Indianapolis, Indiana and worked for Islamic Horizons Magazine in Plainfield as an assistant editor and then to Chicago, Illinois for a time as reporting fellow with Northwestern University
's Academy for Alternative Journalism and the Chicago Reader in 2004. He has also freelanced for The Miami Herald
and The Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, including helping to cover the local Muslim community reaction to the Sept. 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks. His efforts to improv local news coverage of the Muslim community at this time was covered by the Miami New Times
. He was also a section editor for the nationally syndicated Muslim community newspaper The Muslim Observer
, covering the South Florida area.
Theaters.[3] He has also studied at Orlando's SAK Comedy Lab
, and at New York's PIT and Magnet Theaters.
Today, he splits his time between his native Hialeah, Florida and Pittsburgh, PA, working as an actor and in improv throughout the United States, including performances at the Gainesville Improv Festival
and at the Del Close Marathon in New York. He is a regular team member with Laughing Gas Improv, Impromedy and the Steel City Improv Theater.
In 2009, Siddiqui also taught workshops on Improvisational Acting at the National Academy of Performing Arts
(NAPA) in Karachi, Pakistan.
Theater in Los Angeles, the Upright Citizen's Brigade in New York, Theatre 99 in Charleston, South Carolina, the Steel City Improv Theater in Pittsburgh and elsewhere. He has illustrated shows for teams at The Chicago Sketchfest, The Chicago Improv Festival, the Del Close Marathon, and the Gainesville Improv Festival
.
USA Network
USA Network is an American cable television channel launched in 1971. Once a minor player in basic cable, the network has steadily gained popularity because of breakout hits like Monk, Psych, Burn Notice, Royal Pains, Covert Affairs, White Collar, Monday Night RAW, Suits, and reruns of the various...
television show Burn Notice
Burn notice
A burn notice is an official statement issued by one intelligence agency to other agencies. It states that an individual or a group is unreliable for one or more reasons...
alongside Bruce Campbell
Bruce Campbell
Bruce Lorne Campbell is an American film and television actor. As a cult movie actor, Campbell starred as Ashley J. "Ash" Williams in Sam Raimi's Evil Dead series of films and he has starred in many low-budget cult films such as Crimewave, Maniac Cop, Bubba Ho-tep, Escape From L.A. and Sundown:...
and Jeffrey Donovan
Jeffrey Donovan
Jeffrey Donovan is an American television, film and stage actor. He plays the lead Michael Westen on the American cable television series, Burn Notice. Notable starring roles in film include: Hitch, Believe in Me, Changeling, and Come Early Morning. He portrayed Robert F. Kennedy in Clint...
, in the George Clooney
George Clooney
George Timothy Clooney is an American actor, film director, producer, and screenwriter. For his work as an actor, he has received two Golden Globe Awards and an Academy Award...
film The Men Who Stare At Goats
The Men Who Stare at Goats
The Men Who Stare at Goats is a book by Jon Ronson about the U.S. Army's exploration of New Age concepts and the potential military applications of the paranormal. The title refers to attempts to kill goats by staring at them...
with Ewan McGregor
Ewan McGregor
Ewan Gordon McGregor is a Scottish actor. He has had success in mainstream, indie, and art house films. McGregor is perhaps best known for his roles as heroin addict Mark Renton in the drama Trainspotting , young Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy , and poet Christian in the...
[1], and in the indie films The Bait and The Festival of Lights—starring Jimi Mistry
Jimi Mistry
-Early life:Mistry, was born in Scarborough, Yorkshire, England to an Indian Hindu father and an Irish Roman Catholic mother. He was brought up a Roman Catholic and attended St. James' Catholic High in Cheadle Hulme before his family moved to Cardiff where he attended Radyr Comprehensive School...
and Aidan Quinn
Aidan Quinn
-Early life:Quinn was born in Chicago, Illinois to Irish parents. He was brought up as a Roman Catholic and raised in Chicago and Rockford, Illinois, as well as in Dublin and Birr, County Offaly in Ireland. His mother, Teresa, was a homemaker, and his father, Michael Quinn, was a professor of...
. He also has a role in the upcoming film CO2—starring Charlie Murphy
Charlie Murphy
Charles Quinton "Charlie" Murphy is an American actor, comedian, and writer notable as being a cast member and writer on the Comedy Central sketch-comedy series Chappelle's Show...
, Mike Tyson
Mike Tyson
Michael Gerard "Mike" Tyson is a retired American boxer. Tyson is a former undisputed heavyweight champion of the world and holds the record as the youngest boxer to win the WBC, WBA and IBF world heavyweight titles, he was 20 years, 4 months and 22 days old...
and Faizon Love
Faizon Love
Faizon Andre Love is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for roles in the films Friday, Elf, Made, and Couples Retreat.-Life and career:...
—and currently has a recurring role on the fifth season of the Lifetime Network series Army Wives
Army Wives
Army Wives is an American drama series that follows the lives of four army wives, their families, and an army husband whose wife is in the army. The series, shot at ABC Studios, premiered on Lifetime on June 3, 2007...
. He will also be appearing in the upcoming season of the FX/The 101 Network series Damages—starring Glenn Close
Glenn Close
Glenn Close is an American actress and singer of theatre and film, known for her roles as a femme fatale Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and singer of theatre and film, known for her roles as a femme fatale Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and...
and Rose Byrne
Rose Byrne
Mary Rose Byrne is an Australian actress.Byrne made her screen debut in 1994 with a small role in the film Dallas Doll...
--as the shady Afghan information broker Shahbaz Gul opposite Dylan Baker
Dylan Baker
Dylan Baker is an American actor, known for playing supporting roles in both major studio and independent films.-Early life:...
, and in the French comedy Bienvenue à Bord—opposite popular French comedic actors Franck Dubosc and Valerie Lemercier
Valérie Lemercier
Valérie Lemercier is a French actress, scriptwriter, director and singer.-Biography:Born in Dieppe, Seine-Maritime as the daughter of farmers, she grew up in Gonzeville and then studied at the Rouen Conservatoire - a dance, music and drama school. Lemercier made her screen debut in 1988, in the...
, set to be released in October 2011.
Siddiqui has also appeared in commercials for Home Depot, Capital One
Capital One
Capital One Financial Corp. is a U.S.-based bank holding company specializing in credit cards, home loans, auto loans, banking and savings products...
, Math Wizard, Danbury Hospital
Danbury Hospital
Danbury Hospital is a 371-bed hospital in Danbury, Connecticut serving patients in Fairfield County, Connecticut and Putnam County, New York.The hospital has 3,300 employees. John M. Murphy, M.D...
and others. He regularly performs with such South Florida improvisational troupes as Laughing Gas and Impromedy, with the Improv Playhouse in Libertyville, Illinois, and with the Steel City Improv Theater in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.[2]
Siddiqui is also a cartoonist, having created a new field of live illustration of improvised theater shows, which he does for improv theaters throughout the country.
Journalism
Siddiqui studied journalism in college and graduated from the University of MiamiUniversity of Miami
The University of Miami is a private, non-sectarian university founded in 1925 with its main campus in Coral Gables, Florida, a medical campus in Miami city proper at Civic Center, and an oceanographic research facility on Virginia Key., the university currently enrolls 15,629 students in 12...
in 2003 with a degree in English and Communication. After graduation, he moved to Indianapolis, Indiana and worked for Islamic Horizons Magazine in Plainfield as an assistant editor and then to Chicago, Illinois for a time as reporting fellow with Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
's Academy for Alternative Journalism and the Chicago Reader in 2004. He has also freelanced for The Miami Herald
The Miami Herald
The Miami Herald is a daily newspaper owned by The McClatchy Company headquartered on Biscayne Bay in the Omni district of Downtown Miami, Florida, United States...
and The Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, including helping to cover the local Muslim community reaction to the Sept. 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks. His efforts to improv local news coverage of the Muslim community at this time was covered by the Miami New Times
Miami New Times
The Miami New Times is a free weekly newspaper published in Miami and distributed every Thursday. It primarily serves the Miami area and is headquartered near Miami's Design District.-Overview:...
. He was also a section editor for the nationally syndicated Muslim community newspaper The Muslim Observer
The Muslim Observer
The Muslim Observer is a weekly newspaper concentrating on issues relevant to Muslims and Islam. It is operating from Farmington, Michigan but with branches across the United States. It reaches all 50 United States and its website, muslimobserver.com, is visited by thousands of people every day...
, covering the South Florida area.
Acting & Improvisation
Siddiqui would later return to Miami and discover improvisational theater through the Laughing Gas Theater Company. Eventually, he would go on to study improv at Chicago's famous ImprovOlympic and Second CitySecond City
Second City or The Second City may refer to:* The second largest city in a country. See: List of largest cities and second largest cities by country...
Theaters.[3] He has also studied at Orlando's SAK Comedy Lab
SAK Comedy Lab
SAK Comedy Lab is a 200-seat Improvisational Comedy theater in downtown Orlando, Florida, listed as "one of Orlando's most popular entertainment venues" by and as a family-friendly show by . SAK was the first theater of actor Wayne Brady, who has played in several shows since as a guest...
, and at New York's PIT and Magnet Theaters.
Today, he splits his time between his native Hialeah, Florida and Pittsburgh, PA, working as an actor and in improv throughout the United States, including performances at the Gainesville Improv Festival
Gainesville Improv Festival
The Gainesville Improv Festival, or GIF, is a 4 day long festival in Gainesville, Florida which celebrates improvisational and sketch theatre. The mission is to share the culture and traditions of the vibrant Gainesville improvisation scene with the rest of the national improv community...
and at the Del Close Marathon in New York. He is a regular team member with Laughing Gas Improv, Impromedy and the Steel City Improv Theater.
In 2009, Siddiqui also taught workshops on Improvisational Acting at the National Academy of Performing Arts
National Academy of Performing Arts
The National Academy of Performing Arts is located in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan.NAPA was established as an institution to conserve and teach performing arts and music to students in Pakistan.- NAPA :...
(NAPA) in Karachi, Pakistan.
Cartooning
During his time studying and performing improvisation in Chicago in 2008, Siddiqui developed a new form of cartooning by creating live cartoon versions of long-form improv shows, primarily at ImprovOlympic Theater, but also at other area theaters including The Second City, the Annoyance and the Playground. He has since produced hundreds of such illustrations, being hired by many prominent improv teams around the country in the field to catalogue their work at those and at other theaters including iOWest and The GroundlingsThe Groundlings
The Groundlings are an improvisational comedy troupe based in Los Angeles, California. The troupe was formed by Gary Austin in 1974 and uses an improv format influenced by Viola Spolin to produce sketches and improvised scenes...
Theater in Los Angeles, the Upright Citizen's Brigade in New York, Theatre 99 in Charleston, South Carolina, the Steel City Improv Theater in Pittsburgh and elsewhere. He has illustrated shows for teams at The Chicago Sketchfest, The Chicago Improv Festival, the Del Close Marathon, and the Gainesville Improv Festival
Gainesville Improv Festival
The Gainesville Improv Festival, or GIF, is a 4 day long festival in Gainesville, Florida which celebrates improvisational and sketch theatre. The mission is to share the culture and traditions of the vibrant Gainesville improvisation scene with the rest of the national improv community...
.