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Sellouts stand up comedy group Credit: Adrian Franco

Comedy groups amped up a Wharton lecture hall Thursday night in an effort to break down intercultural barriers.

“tripleSHOT,” a first-ever annual event centered around culture, comedy and charity, brought laughs with performances by all-male a cappella comedy group Penn Six, stand-up comedy club Simply Chaos and headliner S.E.L.L.O.U.T., a comedy tour with comedians featured on HBO, Comedy Central and BET, among others.

The goal of the event was “to raise intercultural awareness and foster dialogue between different groups on campus through comedy,” explained Penn Microfinance Club representative and Wharton sophomore Ishika Das. Comedy, she said, is the easiest way to break down reservations students have when discussing issues of race and diversity.

“We’re breaking down cultural barriers with laughter,” Simply Chaos President and College junior Oren Lavie summed up between acts.

Penn Sangam, the Bengali Students Association, the Black Students League and the Penn Persian Society also contributed to the night with special video clips and commentary.

Penn Six fused comedy and culture by each taking the stage dressed as a pun on a different country’s name before launching into song, and Simply Chaos threw a few jokes about racial stereotypes into their lineup.

But after a brief intermission, S.E.L.L.O.U.T. stole the evening with a line-up of three stand-up comedians delivering jokes on “being black.” The audience offered the three plenty of material for the show’s closer, “Ask a Black Man … Anything!,” where the comedians read aloud the anonymous questions passed up during intermission.

“What is a weave? I’ve heard that it’s synthetic hair black women glue to their head, but that can’t be right,” one asked. Another: “How do you feel about rich white kids who try to act gangster and shit?” And a crowd favorite: “Do black men like Asian women?” — Their answer: “Yes.”

Event planners were happy with the turnout despite a few bare sections of the lecture hall — this was the event’s first test run.

Palak Kundu, Engineering senior and Bengali Students Association co-president, first pitched the idea for the event to the United Minorities Council last year. The Bengali Students Association, he said, has been mainly involved with tutoring projects in the local community but had yet to host any large social events.

He noted that the event was “one of the biggest collaborations” Penn has seen between student groups on campus, and that the three themes of culture, comedy and charity brought the groups together as “not just a hodge podge … something that’s tight.”

Ticket proceeds benefit NGOs in communities represented by the Penn Microfinance Group and Lend For Peace, allowing the student groups involved to “give back to their communities back home,” Kundu said.

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