Let Them Entertain You!
Lea DeLaria: Don’t Judge a Butch by Its Cover
There’s a scene in Orange Is the New Black when Big Boo, played by Lea DeLaria, comes to visit her sick mother, only to have her father stop her at the hospital door and suggest that her appearance will upset her mother, referring to her identity as a “costume.” Boo tries to explain how hard it’s been for her to get to a point where she could be herself. “I refuse to be invisible,” she says. “Not for you, not for Mom, not for anybody.” She turns and leaves. It’s a heartbreaking scene, and one that resonates for many. The title of the episode? “Finger in the Dyke.” And it’s that contrast of hilarity and significance that defines Lea DeLaria.
Born in Belleville, Illinois, Stove Capital of the World and the town that also produced Buddy Ebsen, Lea took to the stage early as both a singer (her father was a jazz musician) and an actor. When she appeared on Arsenio Hall in 1993, she became the first gay comic on TV. Producer Fred Silverman signed her immediately.
What followed was a decade on One Life to Live and a string of appearances on sitcoms, usually playing the lesbian who inappropriately hits on straight women, until she started saying no. “I was sick of the joke,” she says.
In the early 2000s, she made a series of highly regarded jazz recordings, showing off her remarkable talent and range. (The lucky audience at Women’s FEST will be treated not only to her tremendous vocal skills, but also to the “band of magnificent women musicians” she brings with her.)
Then, in 2013, she was cast as Carrie “Big Boo” Black, a lesbian inmate on the Netflix hit Orange Is the New Black. “Everything changed with Orange,” Lea says. “I had done lots of interesting work before that, it’s just that Orange was such a worldwide phenomenon, and still is. I can’t go anywhere on the planet without someone screaming ‘Big Boo’ or my actual name and wanting to get a selfie with me.”
But even with that, she understands the greater significance. “When grandmothers shove their teenage granddaughters next to me to get a picture taken, that’s amazing. They used to cross to the other side of the street when they saw me coming.”
Her talents seem limitless. She’s done comic recordings, vocal recordings, movies, TV, voiceovers, theater, podcasts, and a video game. And her fame is cemented as the originator of the famous joke: What does a lesbian bring on a second date? Answer: A U-Haul. She’s even joined the Marvel Universe, playing the lesbian shape-shifter Raven on podcasts.
She is encouraged by the progress, if slow, toward equity. “After all the years I spent watching the roles that were written for lesbians being done by straight women, it’s really nice now that they sometimes give it to a dyke.” She recalls when all the roles that were written for lesbians were not written, directed, or acted by lesbians. “We were being erased from our own narrative,” she says.
Now, she’s appearing in an off-Broadway production of The Night of the Iguana. The characters are an eclectic group: the defrocked Reverend Shannon, the lusty hotel owner Maxine, the butch vocal teacher Judith, the 16-year-old Charlotte, the spinster Hannah, and her 97-year-old grandfather Nonno, a poet (I’ll leave it to readers to guess which part Lea plays). It’s yet another affirmation, for as Lea confirms, “You don’t get cast in a Tennessee Williams play if they’re not taking you seriously as an actor.”
Meanwhile, she has used her platform to advocate for food security, voting, and (closest to her heart), gay youth. They’re “very, very, important to me, especially with what’s going on in our country right now,” she says. She worries that homelessness among queer youth is rising. “I get very upset about it…I’m a very proud atheist…but I can still say that nobody has the right to tell you God doesn’t love you.”
Meanwhile, “I refuse to be invisible” has become a battle cry. “I feel like that made butches far more visible,” says Lea. “We’ve had issues, even within our own community as butches…it was very important to me that I could be a part of the world seeing us in a different light.”
What can we expect from Lea at Women’s FEST? “I’m loud, I’m vulgar, I’m funny, I’m in your face, rapid fire, I talk about what’s going on in the world—it’s very improvisational.” She’ll be offering a nice mix of comedy and music. “I found out very early in my career that I’m so loud, I’m so fast, and I’m so vulgar, that people can take about five minutes of it and they’re like ‘Mommie, make it stop!’ so I started bringing musicians with me and singing because it allowed people a break.”
Expect a Broadway tune or a jazz number from one of her records, perhaps even a sneak preview of her upcoming album of love gone wrong songs (F*** Love). Political content? “Oh, of course. It’s an election year. There’s lunacy everywhere. It needs to be discussed.” One promise: “You guys are going to get a fantastic show. I’m gonna kick some butt for y’all.”
Crys Matthews: Lifting Spirits with Songs of Compassionate Dissent
For singer/songwriter Crys Matthews, “y’all” means all. “For too long, people who look like me and love like me have been told country music wasn’t for us, but times are truly changing.” She explains, “We’re as country as we want to be, without all the hate and the bigotry. It’s time that we try something new.”
Her goal is to “amplify the voices of the unheard, to shed light on the unseen, and to be a steadfast reminder that hope and love are the truest pathways to equity and justice.” And when I say “goal,” this is her mission statement, posted on her website and central to her music. She explores everyday life and love and social justice issues like Black Lives Matter, immigration, and gun violence. “It’s always centering on empathy,” she says, “it’s always centering on the human stories behind these topics.”
Matthews is inspiring audiences, and her star is rising—upcoming performances at the Lincoln Center and South by Southwest, comparisons to Woody Guthrie, and multiple awards, including the acclaimed International Folk Music Song of the Year in 2022 for her song “Changemakers”. ASCAP VP & Creative Director Eric Philbrook says, “By wrapping honest emotions around her socially conscious messages and dynamically delivering them with a warm heart and a strong voice, she lifts our spirits just when we need it most in these troubled times.”
When Crys Matthews grew up in Richlands, North Carolina, (population 3,000), life revolved around church and family. So, when she was outed in high school (Matthews refers to it as “the night the lights went out in Georgia”) things didn’t go well. Fortunately, she found a supportive environment at Appalachian State University, and she was able to spread her wings.
Matthews’s roots run deep, and she calls herself a proud southerner. “It’s getting more imperative to say that,” she says, defending southerners as great folks for the most part. “So often, in moments like this one, we find that the loudest voice in the room often gets mistaken for the most prevalent, and that’s rarely the case.”
With her tenth album on the horizon (the first one recorded in Nashville), Matthews is thinking more about the kids than the kudos. “I hope it encourages young people. I hope it inspires them. I hope it reminds them of their history and the history of this country…. I hope it helps them feel seen and not alone. I hope that it is everything for that little Black lesbian in the rural South that I needed music to be for me when I was that.”
As to what the FEST audience can expect, she says, “They will laugh; they will cry; they will sing, and their wells will hopefully be filled up pretty heartily by the time we’re done.”
CAMP Rehoboth’s Women’s FEST strives to create and maintain an inclusive and accessible environment that empowers all persons, including persons with disabilities. If you or your companion have any needs related to accessibility, please contact Hope at Hope@phoenixaccessibilityteam.com.
Lea DeLaria photo credit: Tina Turnbow