Brian Copeland

Brian Copeland (born 1964) is an American actor, comedian, radio talk show host, playwright and author based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Copeland has been the opening act for artists such as Ray Charles, Natalie Cole, Aretha Franklin and Ringo Starr. For the past 18 years he has hosted a radio program for San Francisco radio station KGO (AM). His program currently airs on Sunday afternoons. On September 13, 2010, he began serving as host of "7 Live," a new hour-long, weekday program on KGO-TV in San Francisco. He is the father of three children, all of whom have followed him into show business.

Copeland was born in Akron, Ohio and grew up in Hayward, California and San Leandro, California.

He attended Moreau Catholic High School, located in Hayward, California.

In 2004, Copeland premiered his first one-man show, Not a Genuine Black Man, at The Marsh. The show is an account of his experiences growing up in the East Bay suburb of San Leandro, California in the 1970s, when it was considered a racist enclave due to its 86.4% white population and the coordinated policies of housing discrimination and segregation which were in place until the 1960s. The play, originally scheduled for a six-week run, went on to run 25 months, becoming the longest-running one-man show in San Francisco history.

GENUINE ran Off Broadway and in over 30 U.S. cities logging over 700 performances during its initial 7-year run.

In February 2012, Copeland premiered his second solo show entitled "The Waiting Period" at the Marsh in San Francisco. The play is a memoir of Copeland's battle with suicidal depression. The 'waiting period' in the title, refers to California's mandatory ten-day waiting period before Copeland could bring home the gun he had purchased for the purpose of ending his life.

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