Iliza Shlesinger joins Jubilee show, Aug. 24-27

The Las Vegas Sun reports today that Iliza Shlesinger will claim part of her Last Comic Standing prize next week, joining the cast of Donn Arden’s Jubilee! at Bally’s Las Vegas from Aug. 24-27. And no, she won’t be topless, you perverts. She’ll be the stand-up comedian among the showgirls. Why such a short stint? Because she’s joining the other four finalists on a nationwide tour starting Aug. 29, that’s why.

I caught up with Shlesinger this afternoon to find out what she has been up to, and this was her reply via email:

I’ve been going up twice a night every night since the last show, sort
of polishing any jokes that needed work. Las Vegas will be relaxing and
a ton of fun. Quite frankly, I wish I could come back home and do more
spots in the Original Room at the Comedy Store — that place is a
fantastic training ground.

Everyone keeps making an issue out of the fact that Shlesinger is the first female comedian to win LCS. Louis Ramey took issue with the show in an interview he did last week, saying his fans were more likely to DVR and TiVo the show, rather than watching it live. On the show, cameras captured Ramey trying to get his fellow male comedians to keep Shlesinger off camera. He told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune: "It’s the show’s sixth year and they never had a woman win," Ramey said. "Through the whole life of the show, they kept saying ‘A woman has never won. Could it be Iliza?’ That’s when I went, ‘That sounds too
planned; we have to get rid of Iliza.’ So I pulled the other guys aside (during the second elimination round) and said, ‘We’ve got to stop voting for Iliza.’"
In the Desert News, meanwhile, reporter Scott D. Pierce said Marcus was the real winner, and only lost because he split the male vote. Shlesinger defended herself in a recent conference call with reporters, saying “I think to a lot of people it means a lot of different things,” she said during a conference call with reporters. “But for me, I’m just Iliza and I won. I’m a comedian that won. The female thing I can’t comment on because I just don’t feel that in my heart.”

I asked her about this, too, and her response to the whole debate? "Who cares, really?" She continued:

I’m
a comedian and I happen to be a women. While I realized that it’s not
so cut and dry for most people- I can’t do anything but be honest. I
didn’t win this show for any other reason than I worked the hardest and
earned it. I performed every week and never ran out of material and
consistently delivered good stuff. Funny is funny and America got that.

Related: Tickets to the Last Comic Standing live tour are available via Ticketmaster here or here for most dates.

Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

View all posts by Sean L. McCarthy →