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[0:14] Sarah Goodman: Hi, I'm Sarah. I'm a sound designer and professional lesbian theater geek. I'm a huge fan of all things theater, Broadway, cabaret, and pop culture. I've got tattoos of Bernadette Peters and Liza Minnelli. In my podcast, I'm looking at theater through a queer lens and discussing the intersection between the craft and the LGBTQ community. My guest today is the incredible Lea DeLaria. She is here to tell us all about her brunch cabaret series at 54 Below called BRUNCH is Gay. I had such a great time in conversation with Lea. Unfortunately, I also had some technical difficulties during the recording. So my microphone did not record from the correct source, and the end of our conversation got kind of chopped off. But there's still a lot of amazing content in the episode coming up, and if you stick around all the way to the end, you'll get to see just how queer is it. Enjoy my conversation with Lea DeLaria.

[1:36] Sarah Goodman: She's best known as Big Boo from Orange is the New Black, for which she won three SAG Awards. And she recently starred in the Off-Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams' play, The Night of the Iguana, directed by Emily Mann. Lea has been on literally every TV show ever that you've ever heard of, including East New York, The Blacklist, some of my faves, Saved by the Bell, Friends, Will and Grace, Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness, Shameless, and Broad City, and literally like five million more TV shows. Every TV show. Film credits include Cars 3, Support the Girls, and First Wives Club, iconic. And her Broadway credits include POTUS, The Rocky Horror Show, and On the Town. Holy shit. She's also an accomplished recording artist and has an exciting new cabaret show monthly at 54 Below called BRUNCH is Gay. Welcome to Good Show, gay icon Lea DeLaria. Thank you so much for joining me today. You've been in interviews all day long. Everyone wants you. You are the third podcast today.

[2:38] Lea DeLaria: I'm having my little podcast jacket right now. It's podcast junket day at the DeLaria home.

[2:43] Sarah Goodman: Oh my God. So thank you so much for joining me. We have a couple little connections that I would love to tell you about in the I can't wait. In our life. So I think you first get some tequila first.

[2:55] Lea DeLaria: Oh no, it's not like that. We don't need tequila yet.

[2:58] Sarah Goodman: Okay, good. So I think you first came onto my radar watching The Rosie O'Donnell Show. You performed from On the Town, and then performed the same song "I Can Cook Too" on this wonderful Carnegie Hall concert called My Favorite Broadway, The Leading Ladies. And I had this concert on VHS and watched it a bajillion million trillion times. And you come out on that stage in a tux doing a fucking cartwheel and then jump into one of the hardest songs of all time. It is so incredible. I've been obsessed with you ever since.

[3:34] Lea DeLaria: I was the only one on that stage that wasn't in a 40-pound beaded gown.

[3:38] Sarah Goodman: Absolutely. Yeah.

[3:39] Lea DeLaria: Yes. Just looking dykey.

[3:42] Sarah Goodman: I love it. No, it's my big age tucks and my chunks.

[3:45] Lea DeLaria: So good. The big glasses, the tux, the cartwheel. I mean, so unexpected. What a standout of like truly iconic lineup on that show.

[3:57] Lea DeLaria: Crazy. Just crazy. Totally crazy. Crazy lineup.

[4:01] Sarah Goodman: Yeah. So I've been aware of you ever since then, which was, I don't even know when that came out in the 90s.

[4:08] Lea DeLaria: 98.

[4:09] Sarah Goodman: Yeah, 98. So watched it a ton. And it's like a big family favorite. I come from a showbiz family. I got two sisters, and our parents are musical theater people. They did a lot of like regional theater when we were growing up. And so the first time I saw you perform live was in the Grove in St. Louis. My older sister, Kristen, was doing sound and lights for you at can't remember what the venue was called. Myers Grove, maybe. It's changed names a bunch of times. Who the hell knows? But it was really fun. And then a more amazing little connection was that a couple years after this show, my sister Kristen opened a lesbian bar in St. Louis. And you went to this bar a few times. It was called Lily's Music and Social House.

[4:50] Lea DeLaria: I know Lily's.

[4:52] Sarah Goodman: Yes. Right around the corner.

[4:55] Lea DeLaria: I was really disappointed when that place closed. I loved it.

[5:01] Sarah Goodman: One of the nights you were there, my mom and my little sister were there. And my little sister has really curly hair. And you went up to her and you were like, you kind of look like little orphan Annie. And then you led everyone in a sing-along of the song "Tomorrow" that ended spontaneously in harmony, because of course a room full of gays. Such things happen. But that's a big family favorite memory that my mom and my sister talk about. So I just had to mention that because that was really sweet.

[5:28] Lea DeLaria: I think I was very drunk, by the way. But we're here to talk about BRUNCH is Gay. I got to go with Kristen in September. I love 54 Below. My listeners know that I also work there doing sound. So I just I love that place. Tell me all about BRUNCH is Gay.

[5:42] Lea DeLaria: Brunch is not just gay. Brunch is a gay high holiday. It always has been, always will be. It's just something we do. And I have throughout the course of my life tried to get brunch shows going. I was the brunch show at Smoke, a jazz and supper club, which is on the Upper West Side for a couple of years. I was there every Sunday.

[6:00] Lea DeLaria: Too much.

[6:07] Lea DeLaria: Yeah. Especially if you're like a working actor. I mean, to commit to and that was a three-set situation. So I'd do three shows every Sunday.

[6:16] Lea DeLaria: Wow. It was just too much. So I got together with my manager. I was like, I'd like to do once a month. And I like the second Sunday because I would prefer the third Sunday, but too many holidays fall on that day. Like Christmas is sometimes the third Sunday. Like, you know what I mean? Second Sundays. You're gonna have Mother's Day. That happened to me. You're gonna have which, but we ended up just doing a big Mother's Day show. Yeah, that was great. That's in you're you might have Easter. Easter might end up being the second Sunday of a month. But I've you know, I have an Easter show, so yeah, I don't have any issues about that. I like doing that.

[6:57] Lea DeLaria: So we looked every, oh my god, we tried everywhere. And then one day I just said, Jeremy, why not 54 Below? He's like, they don't do brunch shows. And I said, I know they have a gospel brunch. So what was happening was 54 Below was trying to put together a brunch series where they want to do a different show every and they've got it. So they've got a Broadway brunch, a drag brunch, My Brunch is Gay, and a gospel brunch. So that's what they've been looking to do. And it's been working out really fucking well, especially since what the idea that I pitched them, which is what we're doing, is that I have a different guest every month. I have a different show every month, I have a different theme every month. So honestly, I do see a lot of repeat. Yeah. Because people know they're gonna see an entirely different show.

[7:51] Lea DeLaria: Absolutely, yeah. And an entirely different guest. Starting in January, we're gonna give the guests two. Ooh, fun. So the guests will do two like a ballad and an up-tempo. And then we'll do two duets, which we're already doing. And there's a theme around it. And so if people that come to the show know it's loose. You saw that it's loose. Mistakes get made. We're singing songs we've never sung before. Yeah, the lyrics are in front of us, but we're entertaining, it's given all that shit, it's so worth it. You just laugh your ass off the whole time. And we're professional, we're professional performers. We make a mistake, we don't like freak out or anything. We make jokes about it, and everybody laughs, and you know, it works really well.

[8:40] Lea DeLaria: The one that you saw, I just I don't know why I thought this was a good idea, but I just had a hysterectomy, like full hysterectomy this week before. Wild listeners. I'm telling you, if Lea had not said anything, we would have just been like, man, look at her go. She's just belting it out like any other day, just like belting up to Jesus. And you're like, Yeah, I just had a hysterectomy a few weeks ago. We're like, excuse me.

[9:05] Sarah Goodman: Oh. Were you in?

[9:06] Lea DeLaria: And I wasn't kidding.

[9:07] Sarah Goodman: Oh how were you? How did you do that?

[9:09] Lea DeLaria: It was kind of nuts. And I couldn't take drug medication. I couldn't take any drugs.

[9:15] Sarah Goodman: You could you were not taking a page.

[9:16] Lea DeLaria: I couldn't weed. I couldn't do any of it because I'm on stage.

[9:20] Sarah Goodman: No.

[9:21] Lea DeLaria: Because it was on stage. Once I got off stage, honey.

[9:23] Lea DeLaria: Oh my God. I was choking up. I was doing all of it. But it was so much fun because Wooly had just had a baby. So we both had our badges completely stitched up.

[9:34] Sarah Goodman: Oh my God.

[9:35] Lea DeLaria: And we're just talking about it on stage. I mean, just talking about it in a way that was hilarious.

[9:42] Sarah Goodman: Oh, yeah. Incredible.

[9:43] Lea DeLaria: And you know, everybody loved it. And I loved, I loved that show. It was such a fun premise for a show. And just, you know, just songs about women.

[9:53] Lea DeLaria: Songs with the women's names in their title. It was just that was called 52 Girls. And it's just progressed from there. I just did it this last Sunday with Isaac Mizrahi.

[10:05] Sarah Goodman: Oh, love.

[10:05] Lea DeLaria: Who we all love Isaac. Don't you love when you watch Fame? When you watch the old movie Fame.

[10:11] Sarah Goodman: Ah.

[10:12] Lea DeLaria: And there's Isaac. I just love it. Anyway.

[10:15] Lea DeLaria: I love him. I used to watch his talk show all the time.

[10:18] Lea DeLaria: Oh my God. He's great. And he's so funny. Yeah. And we have a very similar worldview. So the two of us together on stage on Sunday talking about seceding from the union was really great. Oh God, I wish I had I'm sad I missed that one. Oh man. Isaac was like, you get a bayonet and a machete. I'll get was like just hilarious. We're gonna meet in Times Square. I was like, let's meet in Harold Square. We're Broadway people. You know, it was just hilarious. Not Isaac Mizurahi with a machete. I can't. That's incredible. You know, we'll be bedazzled, I'm sure. Yeah. So it was just like it was such a great show. And uh people really needed to heal. Yeah. You know what I mean? People needed people needed to laugh, but they also really needed the music.

The thing that got the biggest response was Isaac and I doing the happy duet, Barbara Streisand and Judy Bell. Oh wow. Stopped the show. People applauded for the longest time. Oh my god. You know what I mean? Yeah, wow. And then we did Bosom Buddies from Maine, which Isaac had never done before in high school. See, see, this is what I mean. I would have died. You get to see, you get to see these people do these insane duets that they've never done before. We had a Cole Porter theme show, you know. So you're getting, and I know Janice Siegel, nine times Grammy women winner for the Manhattan Transfer. We had a Bebop show. Oh, yeah. So we were just amazing. We were scattering and vocalized and vocalizing and just, you know, really fun.

So the thing about my career is that I've got Broadway, I've got film and television, and I've got jazz, and I'm tapping the people I know from all of these, you know, realms to come be my guest in the show. So it just it just appeals to a lot of people, I think.

[12:14] Sarah Goodman: That's so exciting. Who is the guest for December?

[12:18] Lea DeLaria: For December, Stacey Sargent. Stacey is a Broadway actor who just kind of killed the world playing Dinah Washington and uh the biopic about Aretha Franklin. And Stacey and I did Midsummer Night's Dream together at the McCarter Theater in 2000. Six. Okay. Might be seven. So we've known each other that long. Wow. And uh she's got just a just beautiful voice. Her most recent was she was in for colored girls on Broadway. That was her most recent Broadway. And she's just immensely talented, a lot of fun. So we're doing it, Christmas show.

[13:04] Sarah Goodman: How fun.

[13:05] Lea DeLaria: All that implies. Yeah. And all that implies. So that's December. January, we have Tony Winner, Lena Hall. So we're going back into the Broadway realm. And Lina and I, again, Lena and I did Garrika's Bound together at ART in 2010, along with the insane cast of very notable um actors that were in that that didn't transfer to New York and nobody knows why still. But uh Thelina and I are doing a David Bowie show. So it'll all be David Bowie songs.

[13:33] Sarah Goodman: Awesome. Great.

[13:37] Lea DeLaria: And then the band Betty, which is a perennial lesbian fancy, I'm all right. Betty, we love Betty. They wrote the side February guest. Oh. And we're doing a show called Fuck Love.

[13:48] Sarah Goodman: Oh my gosh. This is Valentine's Day. It's all love gone wrong songs.

[13:51] Lea DeLaria: Oh, I'm gonna be there for that one. Yeah, for sure. And then March, we are is International Women's Month. So I am doing gals and dolls, the genderqueer version. So it's we're doing Guys and Dolls, but with all Butch Dykes and uh trans women and men.

[14:10] Sarah Goodman: Oh my god. All right, it's gonna be fun.

[14:15] Lea DeLaria: Because these sounds too so amazing. Please do. The concepts are off the chart, these really. And speaking of charts, what a funny segue. I want to ask you about your arrangements because even all the way back to your jazz albums, double standards, smoke sessions, play it cool. You have the most incredible arrangements of songs.

[14:34] Sarah Goodman: Thank you.

[14:39] Lea DeLaria: The concepts are taking songs and putting them in an arrangement of a different genre in jazz style. So who does your arrangements? Do you do them? Do you work with an MD? Tell me a little bit about that.

[14:52] Lea DeLaria: My first two records, the arrangements were done by Gil Goldstein and myself. Gil has been in the world of jazz for a very, very long. He did all the horn arrangements for Miles Davis, for example. He's just a you know, he's a guide in in the land of jazz. So Gil and I worked together. Uh, I came to the table with um the first record play it cool. I came, the reason I got the record deal was because of my arrangement of Sweeney Todd, the swing version of Sweeney Todd. And I literally wrote that down because that's one of my favorite songs of yours that you've recorded. Absolutely fully my arrangement. Wow. So yeah, but the rest of them were done by both Gil and I were both credited with with the arrangements.

The same with the second double standards, except Tattooed Love Boys and Dance and Barefoot. I came with those. And then Gil and I worked on the rest of them together. Starting then after that, the next records, the live smoke sessions, the Christmas album, The House of David, I worked very steadily and have been now since about 2010. My partner is uh Jeanette Mason, who is a fucking great arranger and composer, and she and I work very, very closely together to come up with um all of these things. And yeah, I'm a contemporary jazz person in that I take I don't do just the American songbook. So you're not gonna hear just the American Songbook when you come see me perform. When you come to see Fuck Love, for example, you'll you're gonna hear me do um the The Chicks Goodbye Earl, but I did like a gospel song.

[16:40] Sarah Goodman: Ooh, okay, which is great.

[16:43] Lea DeLaria: And I might even I might even bring a big choir in with me and Betty to do goodbye. I think it'll be really fun. Absolutely. But uh, so that that kind of stuff. And then House of David is all David Bowie songs that we turned into jazz covers. And that David himself was very, very supportive of. No, that's not true. I've been very lucky in that respect. I've been I've gotten a lot of support because people to when you look like me and you talk like me and you ran out of fucks to give when Sonny was with Sheriff, people want to stand in your way. So when you have the support of someone like David Bowie to make a David Boy record, it's very good. When you have Gil Goldstein in a world of jazz, they pay more attention to you. You know what I mean? So I've been very lucky with the help that I've gotten in all the things that I do throughout my career.

[17:38] Sarah Goodman: Yeah. Where did you get your musical talent? Do you have a musical family? Did you grow up on the field?

[17:43] Lea DeLaria: Yeah, my dad was a jazz pianist.

[17:45] Sarah Goodman: Your dad's a jazz pianist.

[17:46] Lea DeLaria: My dad was a jazz pianist. My mother was a dancer. They met in the USO. Oh, wow. He was try he was touring with the Army Air Corps jazz band. And my mother was a dancer in the USO. That's how they met.

[17:58] Sarah Goodman: Oh, that's awesome.

[17:59] Lea DeLaria: Which is too fucking sweet for me. You know, that's like a story out of me. If I didn't have diabetes, I would give myself diabetes for telling that story. But uh yeah, so I was always encouraged talent-wise. And was the only one of my siblings that really wanted to do that. So yeah, they were really encouraged, they were very encouraging with all that. And my dad could see that I was really musical. I've always been very musical. I'm really lucky that way. You know, often when I'm doing any musical theater, a musical director will look at me and just go, You're so musical. Yeah. Because I'll just go, what if we do this and this rather than this? You know what I mean? I'm not that's one of the things about our business.

You do get to be creative with people. And when you do get to do that, like I just did a workshop of this new musical based on Salem, and it's called Salem. It's hilarious, by the way. Awesome. Concept is hilarious, the music is great. But that was, you know, part of the deal when we were learning the music and stuff, where I would go, what if I took this one up an octave and belted belted that D for you rather than singing a D that's right here in my mid-range? You know, just stuff like that.

[19:17] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[19:18] Lea DeLaria: And when they allow all of us to be a part of the creative scene together, you make such great shit. You know?

[19:24] Sarah Goodman: Yes.

[19:25] Lea DeLaria: Yeah. That's the my favorite thing about theater is that it's so collaborative. And it really works like the best work is done when people are really doing a lot of collaboration and it's not just sort of a dictatorship kind of a thing going on. Um sometimes the dictatorship works. You know, I've worked for directors that don't really want your input. And that's okay. Because look, I get it. This is your I'm you know I'm not even the paint brush. I'm the paint. You're the artist I would say the writer and other people there the they're like the paint brush. I'm the paint. You you're gonna put me where you need me to be and it's my job to figure out why I'm here. Kind of the way I look at it.

I don't I just fucking hate this shit. When I have to listen to some actor talk about how their character would do this. You it's your job as an actor to figure out why your character's doing it. The director's not just asking you randomly for something they're trying to create something here. You know what I mean? So that shit drives me fucking nuts. That one people bitch you are doing the one thing that you have ever wanted to do in your entire life and you're complaining do you know how many people get to do the one and only thing they have ever wanted to do.

[20:52] Lea DeLaria: You know that's just next to me. So I always come from a place of joy when I'm attacking anything music, theater, you know, whatever it is, stand up. I come from a place of joy.

[21:06] Sarah Goodman: Yeah. You know?

[21:08] Lea DeLaria: That's so important. And especially with a lot of the kind of bleak world stuff we're living with all the time and about to go into. You know, leading with joy is hard sometimes.

[21:16] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[21:19] Lea DeLaria: We gotta do it, right? No, you gotta protect the joy. You've gotta protect the joy. You know, you gotta, and also don't don't, don't let the fuckers get you down. Don't let the assholes get you down. There's always gonna be assholes. You know, we survived, we survived Nixon, we survived Reagan twice.

[21:40] Sarah Goodman: Yeah, we survived W once.

[21:42] Lea DeLaria: I'm sorry, sorry, uh George was once, W twice, and we survived him the first time. I think we will survive him the second time. It's a lot scarier now.

[21:53] Sarah Goodman: Yeah, there's a lot more going on.

[21:55] Lea DeLaria: Uh, but that means we just have to ramp it up. We have to ramp it up.

[22:00] Sarah Goodman: Yeah, absolutely.

[22:01] Lea DeLaria: You know, my Kamala Harris flag is still flying right outside on my balcony here, and it will remain there until my fuck Trump flag, which I have ordered, yes, shows up, and it's it's showing up in 10 days, I think. So I'm gonna replace that with fuck Trump.

[22:14] Sarah Goodman: Yeah, fuck Trump.

[22:17] Lea DeLaria: Fuck Trump. And my fuck Trump Fridays are coming back on my social media starting this Friday.

[22:22] Sarah Goodman: All right, okay.

[22:24] Lea DeLaria: Yeah, I love that.

[22:26] Sarah Goodman: What do you think makes a good show?

[22:28] Lea DeLaria: Talking about musical theater. A story that you want to watch or want to hear about. Great songs, songs that you walk out of the theater singing, fantastic, you know, performances. I thought Shucked was fucking hilarious. I thought Shucked was what of the reason I go to musical theater.

[22:46] Sarah Goodman: Okay.

[22:46] Lea DeLaria: Mm-hmm. I felt that way about Strange Loop as well. And they're A and B. Do you know what I mean?

[22:54] Sarah Goodman: Sure.

[22:56] Lea DeLaria: There's certain things like I don't like Jukebox musicals. I can't stand them. Can't stand them. Right?

[23:00] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[23:01] Lea DeLaria: So you don't see me go to a lot, a lot of them. But when you when you lose me is when the music sucks. The plot is just what the fuck is that? And you can even still grab me for example in Hell's Kitchen with great performances.

[23:21] Sarah Goodman: Right.

[23:22] Lea DeLaria: And the music is fantastic. And the dancing was fantastic. That was not the lamest plot I ever saw in my life. But the end, sometimes the other's dice version, my piano teacher died. The end.

[23:32] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[23:33] Lea DeLaria: So it's like, yeah, you know, it is what it is. But fucking entertaining.

[23:39] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[23:40] Lea DeLaria: You know what I mean? I don't, and I don't want to go to like if I go to theater and I'm not entertained, I walk up. I leave a theater mission. I'm not saying I don't care. You know what I mean? But a good show for me has to have a really especially musicals if we're speaking musical. An interesting plot. Then it can be fucking paper thin, like shocked. I just never seen anything like it.

[24:04] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[24:06] Lea DeLaria: I love it. You know what I mean? What are your some of your favorite musicals?

[24:09] Lea DeLaria: Gypsy.

[24:10] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[24:11] Lea DeLaria: Always. And I'd I go like this between Sweeney Todd and Sunday in the park with George. Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the park with George. Sweeney Todd, Sunday Park with George. So yeah, fucking love uh that those both both of those musicals.

[24:29] Sarah Goodman: Uh Hamilton, as I just really, as a new musical, really fucking love Hamilton.

[24:34] Lea DeLaria: Hairspray.

[24:35] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[24:36] Lea DeLaria: Book of fucking Mormon. I've seen Book of Mormon so many times.

[24:40] Sarah Goodman: Really?

[24:41] Lea DeLaria: Oh, if I am unhappy, like right now, if I'm unhappy, if I'm having a bad day, if our whatever it is, and I need to be cheered up, I can go to Book of Mormon.

[24:53] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[24:54] Lea DeLaria: In all the years of Book of Mormon has been on Broadway. I think I've seen it 16, maybe 17 times.

[24:58] Sarah Goodman: Oh my gosh, super fan over here.

[25:01] Lea DeLaria: Yeah. Amazing. Super fan of Book of Mormon. I love it. Sing it from top to bottom. And every time laugh my ass off.

[25:08] Sarah Goodman: Okay.

[25:09] Lea DeLaria: So another topic I like to talk about on this podcast is queer representation on stage, on TV and film. Um you've been really, I mean, saying like that you are a trailblazer is sort of an understatement. What gave you the balls to just be yourself your whole life?

[25:28] Lea DeLaria: Oh, I mean, because I started doing this in 1982. So we're at the, you know, we're we're at the near beginning of the modern queer movement. You know, at that time. This is we're we're talking about just a few years after the white knight riots in San Francisco, right?

[25:39] Sarah Goodman: Wow.

[25:48] Lea DeLaria: That happened in 78, 79 was when all that shit went down. So I'm in San Francisco in 1982. And so also all of my boyfriends are dying, and nobody's doing anything about it. And even before that, I came out when I was still in St. Louis. And I was at the first St. Louis Pride Parade, which was in 1978.

[26:08] Sarah Goodman: Wow.

[26:09] Lea DeLaria: But the modern day movement pretty much started at Stonewall in 68. And then, you know, we had the craziness of the 70s, the White Knight riots brought it even more to the forefront. And then I showed on the scene in 82, and it just never have always been in that scene. So I've never, I was never closeted as a stand-up comic.

[26:31] Sarah Goodman: Right.

[26:31] Lea DeLaria: I always talked about who I was, and that started in 82. And it was 84. Then I went to Provincetown. So I was making a living performing in a gay town, basically, as this gay performer. And that's what eventually shot me onto the Arsenio Hall show in '93. So I'd been doing it for a while. I was never not I'm not gonna be untrue to what I think and who I am.

[26:57] Sarah Goodman: Right.

[26:57] Lea DeLaria: And you know, actually when I grew up, I thought I was the only one. So that was one of the reasons I chose to do this this way, because I didn't want young, you know, young dykes to think they're the only one. I want them to see me. And and it's proven to be very successful. I mean, the DMs that I get from I are everything from, you know, thank you so much because of you.

[27:24] Lea DeLaria: I was able to come out, which is lovely.

[27:27] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[27:27] Lea DeLaria: You know, from a young lesbian, to I'm a lesbian and I can't tell my family because they'll stone me to death. And, you know, I and I guess those and I take them very seriously, you know, uh, and try to help people out as much as I possibly can.

[27:45] Sarah Goodman: I want to thank Lea DeLaria so much for being on Good Show. Like I said earlier in the episode, I did have some technical difficulties, so that is where our conversation wraps for this episode. She did say a lovely goodbye. I got one additional story from her that I would love to share with you all. Hopefully, she'll be able to come back on the pod again in the future and tell some more great stories with us.

[28:11] Sarah Goodman: But now is the time to figure out how queer is it? And we're talking about brunch is gay on the queer scale. The good show queer scale is a rating of queerness from low-key queer to the most queer. The first category is Fruity, aka Pete Buddig. I think y'all get the picture with that one. Uh number two, just above Fruity is Love is Love. That's like a really nice, sort of palatable queerness.

[28:44] Sarah Goodman: Then we have three, which is hella gay. We're just starting to get really into the gay spectrum, right? We're like saying it out loud. We're we're being there loud and proud. Then we have Slays for Days. Okay. This is like a little bit more. This is giving you something to take home, right? Then we have queer as fuck. All right. That's things are getting very queer up in here.

[29:15] Sarah Goodman: And the most queer you could possibly be is are we gonna get in trouble for this? So we're ranking Lea DeLaria's BRUNCH is gay on the good show, queer scale. And let me just say it's right there in the name. It's both brunch and gay. So it's definitely more than hella gay, right? We're we're pushing beyond the hella gay spectrum because not only is there a queer icon on stage, but we also have brunch.

[29:45] Lea DeLaria: Which is like Leah said, a gay holiday.

[29:50] Sarah Goodman: So this show slays for days. Okay, that's what I'm gonna give it. And I'm gonna predict that when they do the all butch queer version of Guys and Dolls, aka Gals and Dolls, uh, that one's going to be queer as fuck, and I can't wait to see it.

[30:10] Sarah Goodman: Thanks again for listening to Good Show. This is Sarah Goodman. Goodbye.

[30:20] Sarah Goodman: Follow Good Show on Instagram and TikTok at Good Show Podcast. And listen to us everywhere podcasts can be found. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or on the Broadway Podcast Network, BPN.fm slash good show.