Rachel Scanlon

Rachel Scanlon performs with her energy pinned to the redline. She paces the stage with wide-eyed, exaggerated movements, playing the cocky heartbreaker before undercutting her own swagger with pure goofiness. She uses her clothes as a tool, jingling a hip-mounted carabiner of keys to punctuate a punchline like a literal mating call. When she acts out a bit, she commits with her whole body. She will pantomime handing out communion wafers as a Catholic priest, isolating the exact moment she realizes how much she enjoys the dominant power of granting people forgiveness.

As the co-host of the widely followed Two Dykes and a Mic podcast, she offers a deliberate alternative to the earnest queer storytelling hour. Her live shows function as part standup, part pep rally. She acts as a loud older sibling for fans who came out by watching internet videos during lockdown, welcoming them into the room with pure enthusiasm.

Her hour Gay Fantasy assumes everyone in the room already gets the joke. The material zeroes in on the absurdities of her own life: elaborate fantasies about gym teachers, the indignities of sharing a hot tub with a large family, and the unexpected power dynamics of Christian rituals. Her pacing rarely drops below a sprint. A crowd has to work to match her stamina, but her refusal to take herself seriously keeps the room buoyant. She never stops the show to deliver a solemn thesis. She just keeps the volume up.

Raised in Minnesota in a large religious household, she strips the traditional midwestern modesty out of her stories, replacing it with sheer spectacle.