Lara Rae

Lara Rae (born 1963 in Glasgow, Scotland), formerly known as Al Rae, is a Canadian comedian, best known as the longtime artistic director of the Winnipeg Comedy Festival[1] and as a performer on the CBC Radio One comedy series The Debaters.

She has also been a writer for radio and television, including on Blackfly,[2] Big Sound,[2] Little Mosque on the Prairie,[2] What a Week, Definitely Not the Opera[3] and Monsoon House.[4] She has been a three-time Canadian Comedy Award nominee and a Gemini Award nominee for her work on Little Mosque.[5]

Rae started as half of the Toronto-based comedy duo Al & George with George Westerholm.[6] After the duo broke up in 1993, Rae moved to Winnipeg and began working as a solo standup comedian.[7] She wrote the play How Do You Know When You're Done?, a fictionalized account of their creative tensions and breakup which premiered at the Tim Sims Playhouse in 1999,[8] and was a founder of the Winnipeg Comedy Festival in 2002.[7]

In 2013, while still known as Al and presenting as male, Rae came out as gay at age 49.[2] She came out as transgender in October 2015.[9] At the time of her announcement, she was working as an assistant director on a stage production of Christopher Marlowe's play Edward II in Winnipeg.[1] In November, she made her first on-stage appearance as a comedian since beginning her gender transition, as part of the Empow(HER)ment comedy show in Winnipeg.[7]