An Iowa City Theatre Received Some Backlash for Booking a Comedian

Back on September 13th, the Englert Theatre in Iowa City announced an upcoming show from comedian Tim Dillon. Tim's A Real Hero Tour is set to take place at the historic venue on Thursday, November 14th at 7 p.m. If you're not familiar with Tim's work, the venue's website reads:

"Tim Dillon is a Stand up comedian, writer, and actor. He was a new face at the Montreal Comedy Festival in 2016. He won the title of New York’s Funniest 2016 at Carolines NY Comedy Festival. In 2017 he was named of the top ten comics you need to know by Rolling Stone magazine. He had two specials premiere in 2018, a Comedy Central Half Hour and a Netflix Quarter hour."

In addition, Tim has performed at many other comedy festivals, he's been featured on various TV shows and popular podcasts, and he hosts his own podcast called The Tim Dillon Show.

Just a few days after announcing the November comedy show, the Englert Theatre posted an update on Facebook regarding the performance. The venue apparently received some backlash for booking the famous comedian. The post doesn't cite any specific comments from disappointed patrons, but it does say:

"In retrospect, with more intensive vetting (that's on us), we would have likely passed on this show in this current moment. We want to host artists who sometimes align and at other times challenge commonly held views in our community--that diversity of expression is important to who we are. However, in this case, given the artist's recent comments which cast increasing doubt on our nationwide vaccination effort in the midst of a pandemic, this show lands as a tone deaf presentation--and we are sorry for that."

Despite the complaints from community members, it does not appear that the show has been cancelled. In fact, the ticketing website reports that all the tickets in Zone 1 have been sold, and so have a lot of the tickets for Zone 2. If you'd like more information on the show or want to purchase tickets, you can click HERE.

Just a heads up for anyone planning to attend any events at the Englert: the website says that everyone attending must wear face coverings and that "patrons must also present a 72-hour (or less) negative COVID-19 test for each individual attending the event" or a vaccine card. Check out the full COVID-19 policies HERE.