Wambui Comedy

About

Wambui was born in Greensboro, North Carolina during segregation and Jim Crow Laws. She learned at an early age the necessity of a sense of humor and the healing power of laughter and comedy.

She left the Carolinas to attend New York University School of the Arts as an acting major. Although students were not supposed to, she ditched class one morning to go audition for an off-Broadway show.

Wambui admits, "even know what the show was about. However, I read in the paper that you were to take a parable from the bible and make it funny - as part of the audition. I was excited about that. I loved comedy. I chose the parable of the prodigal's son and went to the audition to see if it was funny. The casting people thought it was really funny. Then, they asked me to sing my song. I told them I didn't have one. Long story short, by the time I got home, I had a message saying I had been cast in some show called Godspell that would be opening at Ford's Theater in Washington, DC. I left school and real life started."

Her Broadway, regional and touring credits include starring roles in Godspell, The Magic Show, Joseph Papp's rock version of Two Gentlemen of Verona, Little Ham, Nunsense, Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope, Gone With the Wind %u2013the musical, The Wiz and Crowns.

She has been a Broadway star. She has been on welfare. She was told she would spend the rest of her life in mental institutions. She has been homeless. She has dined with a former President of the United States.

Named John Washington at birth, (her mother predicted she would be a boy and therefore named her after her father. Even though she was born a girl, her mother was never one to admit when she was wrong. So, she kept the name John Washington for her daughter. She did change the middle name from Louis to Ann) Wambui Bahati is her new legal name taken on during the "reinvention of herself." In Swahili Wambui means "singer of songs," Bahati means, "my fortune is good." She lives in New York City and is the proud mother of two adult daughters.

Experience