Mina Liccione

Liccione was born in Rochester, New York, USA, but later moved to New York City as a teenager.[1] At the age of 3, Liccione's parents, Tony Liccione (former Boxing Promoter and President of the Rochester Boxing Hall of Fame) [2] and Patty Liccione enrolled her in dance class because she was very shy. At age 13, she took her first job as a dance teacher's assistant, and by age 14 she was in the Performance Plus Dance Company and also a Flower City Rockette.[3] While in high school at the age of 16, Liccione was accepted into the 3-1-3 program where she began to attend dance classes at the college level as part of the dance program at SUNY Brockport taught by Garth Fagan, the Tony Award winning choreographer of The Lion King.[1] At age 17, Liccione was awarded a scholarship to Marymount Manhattan College where she went on to major in dance.[1][4]

While attending college, Liccione started to take acting and comedy improv classes, speaking on stage for the first time. She was cast as the lead in a number of college productions including the role as The Evil Step Mother in the musical Cinderella Ragtime, the role of the Blue Queen in The Chess Game and the role of the Wolf in Peter and the Wolf.[1] Liccione minored in theater arts and also focused on choreography and dance composition.

Liccione's first big break came at the age of 17 on the first season of MTV's dance show The Grind where she went on to film eight episodes.[1][5] Liccione also became a troupe member of the experimental performance art troupe J Mandle Productions, was cast in Cabaret off Broadway, was a back-up dancer for Candy and Deee-lite, performed and modeled with the House of Xtravaganza, and was cast by Japanese mime Yas Hakashima to be in his first ensemble based production.[1] Liccione was also cast as a featured dancer in the film Cradle Will Rock directed by Tim Robbins and starring Susan Sarandon, Billy Murray, John Turturro, and Vanessa Redgrave.[3]

In October 1998, Liccione was cast in the Off-Broadway show Stomp.[6] She performed with the New York cast until January 1999 and then went on tour with them until 2001. Liccione was on the USA National Tour and later a member of the European International Touring Company. In 2001, Stomp opened up a show in San Francisco and asked Liccione if she would re-locate there to be a part of the show.

While in San Francisco, Liccione auditioned for the Clown Conservatory as part of the San Francisco School of Circus Arts, the only professional circus arts training school and the only one of its kind in the United States.[7] Liccione was accepted and offered a partial scholarship to attend.

Before graduating, Liccione was invited to audition for a new show by Make*A*Circus named “Zoomorphia” and was cast as one of the leads.[1] Upon accepting the role, Liccione also trained to be an aerialist on the static trapeze. Liccione performed a comedy aerial solo on their summer tour along with a one-woman band act. After the show closed, Liccione then was asked to audition for the New Pickle Circus, a renowned theatrical circus in California. Liccione was cast as the lead Ring Mistress in their production of ‘Circumstance’ directed by Cirque Du Soleil stars Gypsy Snider and Shana Caroll.[8]

During this time, Stomp was leaving San Francisco and asked Liccione if she would relocate Boston with the show. Liccione declined and decided to stay and focus on circus.

Liccione went on the get her master's degree in experimental performance at the New College of California.[1]

During Graduate school, Liccione was asked to be a core member of Velocity Circus. Liccione accepted and went on to be cast in lead roles for a series of shows by Velocity Circus including ‘Heliosphere Jr.’ and ‘1906’.[9]

During this time, Liccione also became the dance teacher at the San Francisco School of Circus Arts and was contracted to choreograph a number of theatrical circus shows around the Bay Area, as well as the Annual Bracebridge Dinner. Liccione wrote her first one-woman show entitled ‘Della Pancha’ which earned her an invitation to headline as part of the WOW Festival, where she won the ‘best solo show’ award.[10] Liccione appeared in the National Lampoon's film ‘Pucked’ and was hired by Cirque Du Soleil to lead training workshops alongside Jeff Raz.[1]

After completing her MA degree in Creative Inquiry with an emphasis on Experimental Performance, Liccione was offered a scholarship to continue on to earn her MFA Degree while building the very first bridge program between New College of California and the Clown Conservatory offering the first USA degree in Theatrical Clowning.[11] Liccione accepted and acted a Professor of ‘Theatrical Clowning’ course. Liccione graduated with an MFA in Experimental Performance and Education completing a thesis on the healing elements of humor and how comedy can be used as a tool to heal and unite people.

Throughout her entire life and career, Liccione always performed comedy whether it be the comic relief in a play or musical, the comedic role in Stomp, a character role in a comedy sketch or film, or physical comedy in the circus. Comedy had always been a part of her life. Liccione had always performed comedy just not Stand Up comedy, yet.

Liccione states that her first stand-up comedy experience happened by accident. While residing in San Francisco, Liccione was asked to host a number of charity events and performances because she was a funny and entertaining MC with comedy acting and physical comedy experience. During one event, things were running late and the audience was getting restless so the producer pushed Liccione out and said ‘just do something funny!”. Liccione walked out on the stage and did her first stand up comedy set. She told a funny story, reenacted a horrible modern dance performance she had seen at the same venue a week beforehand, and then started doing ‘crowd work’, which is when a stand up comic picks on a few people in the audience and improvises a series of jokes based upon where they are from and what they do for a living etc. Liccione received rave reviews after the show and one the performers, who was a well known stand up comic in San Francisco told her she needed to continue doing stand up comedy. Liccione then went on to do some local shows around San Francisco and continued to add Stand Up Comedy sets to her big MC gigs, and it just kept growing. Liccione’s use of comedy and performance since she was a child paved the way towards a career as a stand-up comedian and gave her the confidence and skills needed to be successful at it.

To date, Liccione has performed and taught comedy on a professional level across the globe including: United States, Canada, Kuwait, Qatar, Scotland, Jordan, Greece, Italy and Mexico. She has performed stand up with great comedians including Gabriel Iglesias, Dean Obeidallah, Tommy Davidson, Michael Winslow (of Police Academy), Aron Kader, Dean Edwards, Ron Josol and many others.[1]

She filmed her first 1 hour stand-up comedy special entitled "Araby by Nature" in Dubai in 2017 acting as the first female comedian to do so in the MENA region. [12] [13]

She can currently be seen on Comedy Central Arabia. All 3 Seasons of Comedy 3al Wagef TV Show, Season 2 of Ridiculousness and her latest stand-up comedy special as part of Menna W Fina will air Fall, 2019. [14] [15] [16]

Mina wanted to continue her charitable outreach work and alongside Ali Al sayed launched Clowns Who Care project. The Clowns Who Care Project is a volunteer initiative aimed at bringing joy, love, light, awareness and support to centers for children and adults with special needs, senior centers, charity organizations and hospitals.[17][18][3]

Awarded “Best Solo Show” at WOW Festival, San Francisco, California[1][19]

Received an award at the Dubai International Dance Festival for her contributions to the arts community[20]

Chosen as 1 of 6 women who “Shape the World” UAE Heroes- 2011- Shape Magazine[21]

Chosen for Ahlan! Magazine's HOT 100 List of 2011 with Ali Al Sayed as the 'Comedy Couple'[22]

Dubomedy's Comedy Courses were rated 'Best classes to take in Dubai' by Time Out Dubai Magazine[23]

Dubomedy co-created an award-winning comedy activation with Cadbury[24]

Nominated for Emirates Woman of the year Award 2012[25]

Awarded first runner-up "most inspiring woman in the GCC" by Philly Arabia - 2013

Currently, Liccione resides in Dubai, where she works as a professional comedian and professor at the American University of Sharjah.