A Week of Kindness

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This article is about a New York sketch comedy troupe. For other meanings, see A Week of Kindness (disambiguation).

A Week of Kindness (often abbreviated to the pronounceable acronym AWOK) are a sketch comedy troupe operating out of New York City. Their current lineup consists of Nate Kushner, Dan Hopper, and Mike Still, who create, direct, and perform all sketches, with other friends of theirs appearing occasionally in filmed sketches. Former members include Devin T. Quin, Allysha Powanda, and Erica Harsch.

They are perhaps less famous for their performances than for an incident that transpired on their website in March of 2005, in which member Nate Kushner executed a sting operation on an undergraduate college student, renamed "Laura K. Krishna" who solicited him over instant messenger to have him write a college paper for her about the Hindu caste system. Kushner wrote a paper that was obviously falsified and plagiarized, and, finding out her name and college, blogged about his experiences as he went about setting her up to get caught by her school. An internet-wide debate ensued on hundreds of websites over the ethics of Kushner's actions.

Since their formation in the Spring of 2005, they have produced five distinct sketch revues, and performed throughout New York City dozens of times, at popular comedy establishments such as Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, the People's Improv Theatre, the National Comedy Theatre, Galapagos Arts Space, the Improv, RiFiFi and many others. Their short films have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times on the internet, and include The Thumblettes, Nature Footage: The Musical, The Profane Gourmet, and A Week of Kindness and the Last Crusade.

AWOK member Nate Kushner is related to the Tony Award winning and Oscar-nominated playwright Tony Kushner.

[edit] Random facts

  • Total number of video sketches produced: 25+
  • Total number of live sketches produced: 60+
  • Number of sketch revues produced: 5, including “Barnyard Jamboree”, “Lords of Time and Space” and the newest, “Dances with Wolfshirts”
  • Short films have been featured on websites all over the Internet, including such sites as CollegeHumor.com, BestWeekEver.tv, SketchfestTV.com, and VMANYC2006.com, the official site of the 2006 MTV video music awards.
  • Number of times AWOK videos have been viewed: 200,000+
  • A Week of Kindness produced the successful Sketchstock 3000 festival at the Medicine Show Theatre. Featured in “Time Out New York,” Sketchstock 3000 brought together twenty-five comedy, music and dance acts for a weekend of sold-out performances.

[edit] Links

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