Lea DeLaria LIVE! Set for 2012 Rhino New Year's Eve Spectacular, 12/31

The Rhino New Year's Eve Spectacular returns with Lea DeLaria LIVE! for two performances only Thursday, December 31, at 7:00 PM & 9:00 PM. A genre defying theatrical performer, Broadway star and vocalist Lea DeLaria brings her one of a kind blend of song and hilarious satire to the Victoria. Ring in the New Year with the most outrageous, tuneful show in town. Tickets can be purchased at www.TheRhino.org or by calling (800) 838-3006.

In Lea DeLaria LIVE! there are punchlines, torch songs and plenty of scatting. The show is a mix of swinging jazz and stand-up blue comedy that explores what it is like to be a bad ass dyke in the post Ellen 21st Century. DeLaria's work in the theater spans comedy to tragedy and has played both on and off Broadway, TV shows and movies.

A pioneering taboo-bashing lesbian comic and acclaimed jazz vocalist Lea DeLaria unleashes her brutal wit in her hilarious, controversial, take-no-prisoners one-woman shows. DeLaria integrates musical performance into her stand-up comedy, focusing on traditional and modern be-bop jazz. "Music is in my blood. My father was a jazz pianist. I grew up with Ella and Trane, Monk and The Velvet Fog. That music was always all around me. I love all music, and also sing Broadway and rock professionally, but there is a special place in my heart for jazz," states DeLaria.

"Until you've seen Lea DeLaria combine the worlds of jazz, Broadway, stand-up comedy and outspoken gay politics, the notion that they could coincide, let alone enhance one another in the same show, might seem unimaginable. But Ms. DeLaria, has a personality so forceful that they do much more than bump elbows...Ms DeLaria delivers the musical goods." Stephen Holden NY Times

She has performed with such noted jazz artists as keyboardist/arranger Gil Goldstein, saxophonist Seamus Blake, bassist Christian McBride, vibraphonist Stefon Harris, pianist Brad Mehldau, and others in tune with her risk-taking modern jazz sense and sensibility. Besides playing at pure jazz clubs like Smalls and Smoke, she has also performed at venues ranging from Carnegie Hall, to the Hollywood Bowl, Lincoln Center, Town Hall, American Repertory Theater, and Royal Albert Hall. Lea's jazz festival dates have included the London Jazz Festival, the New York City JVC and Montreux Jazz Festival, and as the featured vocalist of The 50th Anniversary of The Newport Jazz Festival.

Lea's Warner Bros. albums have confirmed her as an outstanding vocalist, with rave reviews on both sides of the Atlantic. Her releases range from "Play It Cool" with songs from Broadway, "Double Standards" featuring jazz interpretations of rock and pop songs by Green Day, Blondie, The Doors and Patti Smith, "The Very Best Of Lea DeLaria," and "The Live Smoke Session." Lea has recorded a new jazz album, "House of David," featuring the songs of David Bowie, due out in 2013.

As the first openly gay comic to appear on a late-night talk-show (The Arsenio Hall Show 93'), DeLaria said "It's the 1990s ... It's hip to be queer, and I'm a bi-i-i-i-ig dyke!" She has hosted Comedy Central's Out There, the first all-gay stand-up comedy special. DeLaria appeared as Jane in the Off Broadway production of Paul Rudnick's The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, a "a gay retelling of the Bible." Entertainment Weekly said "a star is born with Lea DeLaria" of her "show stopping" performance as Hildy Esterhazy in the Broadway revival of On the Town. DeLaria subsequently played Eddie and Dr. Scott in the Broadway revival of The Rocky Horror Show. She has appeared on numerous television shows (Will and Grace, Friends) and in films (The First Wives Club, Edge of Seventeen, Homo Heights). In 2013 she is appearing in the new musical Amandine and currently is in production on the upcoming television prison series Orange Is the New Black, playing Big Boo, to be released on Lionsgate Television and Netflix in fall 2013.

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