Spotlight: Ilana Glazer’s Horny 4 tha Polls Tour
The Broad City star on stand-up, Donald Trump, and embracing her queer identity
“It feels like our president is satirical,” says Ilana Glazer. “So what’s the role of the [comic] when someone who’s supposed to be in power is acting so clownish, and the way he talks is in comedy cadence, not in traditional political cadence? So I feel like people are looking to comedians for a philosophical platform — deep, layered. That’s my favorite kind of comedy. But I also think sometimes the role of comedy is just to merely escape and to only focus on joy.”
For the past decade, Glazer has been identified with Comedy Central’s joyously outrageous Broad City. The sitcom, which also starred fellow comic Abbi Jacobson, ended its run in 2019. “I’m now recalibrating adulthood outside of Broad City,” says Glazer. “Abbi and I are in new territory right now, not having the show being God.” Glazer decided to forgo more television and focus on stand-up. Her first-ever Amazon special, The Planet is Burning, is a manic, hour-long rant, showcasing Glazer’s sensual and boisterous physicality while delving into giddy celebrations of the LGBTQ community, the suction-packed horrors of using a “DivaCup,” and the profoundly unsettling deployment of Holocaust reenactments in Hebrew School. Next Wednesday, Glazer brings her latest show to the Warner Theater.
“This tour is called ‘Horny 4 tha Polls,'” she says. “We’re using stripper pole imagery, but also the voting polls. There’s also a voter empowerment dance party on Super Tuesday that I’m hosting with my political organization, Generator Collective…. We pair the joy of dance with the right to vote.”
Glazer has opted to support Bernie Sanders for the Democratic candidacy. “His campaign reaches the most people,” she says. “He reaches poor people and young people. If we can mobilize that voting block — and I think he can — I think we can win. I really wish Bernie and [Elizabeth] Warren would work together, because they would defeat this president and they would actually create progress in the next four years…. The other candidates, I appreciate them, but I wish they would get out of the race.”
Glazer, who is married to David Rooklin, identifies as queer. Asked if she’s ever had a romantic encounter with a woman, she is remarkably candid. “With the parameters in my relationship, it’s available to me,” she says. “I am open to it, and it could still happen in some form. Life is long and my partner is my life partner. But I feel like my partnership is about growing love, and not limiting, owning, controlling.
“But I also think of queerness as transgressing any prescribed way of living regarding sexuality and gender. My parents treated my brother [who is gay] and me super gender-equal, so I rarely had some script put on me in such a way that was oppressive. I love the queer community. That’s who I want to party with forever.”
Ilana Glazer brings her Horny 4 tha Polls Tour to the Warner Theatre on Wednesday, March 4, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $49 to $139. She also will host the Genny Social Dance Party featuring music by LUV, on Tuesday, March 3, at the Pearl Street Warehouse, 33 Pearl Street SW, at 8 p.m. Tickets are $15 with proceeds benefiting the Bail Project. Visit www.horny4thapolls.com. Follow Glazer on Twitter at @ilazer.
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