Comedian Ian Harvie

No matter who you are, who you love or where you come from, Ian Harvie will make you feel as though you are family. Everyone will be able to relate to his observations about life, relationships, and the routine challenges we all face from day-to-day. His wickedly funny stories are couched in an amiable personality that could put any audience at ease, while his folksy, ingenuous delivery almost - but not quite - tempers his zinger punch lines, making them not just hilarious but seriously twisted. Even if he wasn’t so witty, without even trying, Ian could set an audience on it’s ear, opening up new realms of irony. He could be your brother, your best friend’s boyfriend or a merely a clean-cut preppie trying his hand at stand-up, but he’s not. In fact, there’s a good reason Frontiers Magazine referred to Ian as “Quite possibly the most unique stand up comic in the country”…Ian’s not “just” a queer comedian- he’s the world’s first transgendered comic…which, when put into context, will make his anecdotes about his own phobia of public restrooms all the more side-splitting!

But because Ian is so comfortable in his own skin, and has such an appealing “boy next door” stage presence, not to mention a keen eye for observation and is an adept mimic verbally as well as with body language, his humor spans all boundaries, from gender to politics, cutting directly to the core of the human condition, in all it’s infinite strangeness.

Ian describes it this way: "I was born female, there is no question that I understand this. I believe that 'female' is a biological and legal term; while my gender is something that I get to create and modify myself. I do not consider myself 'male', however I do identify as a man - the two are not necessarily connected for me. These are words I like to use when describing my gender: Butch, Trans, Trans Man, Tranny Boi, and Masculine. I don't feel like I was robbed of the correct biological sex, I believe I was born in the right body, I just may want to change it a little bit. Really, who hasn't felt this way about some part of their body?"

It’s this facile sense of ease and not just his gender-bending presence that makes Ian’s humor groundbreaking, and has lead him to make history on more than one occasion. It’s the very quality that attracted the notorious Margaret Cho to not just publicly rave about Ian’s work, but to feature him in her smash show “The Sensuous Woman” and tour with him nationally and internationally constantly; it’s what landed him spots on ABC's Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen, Logo's OutLaugh on Wisecrack.

Born in Portland, Maine in 1968 and raised on the shores of (no, this isn’t a joke) Beaver Pond, Ian is one of a mere handful of polysyballic New Englanders. Raised on a steady diet of television sitcoms and variety shows, Ian made his comedic debut at the age of eight, standing in front of fitted sheet hanging from a clothesline. Obsessed with “The Carol Burnett Show”, Ian channeled Rich Little’s impression of Richard Nixon, and, as they say in the biz, he “killed”.

Though that particular act is regrettably no longer part of his active repertoire, it gave him the drive at an early age to explore comedy and to develop the quick-witted, quirky persona audiences love today. He honed his skills to precision at The Comedy Connection in both Portland and Boston, making even staunch, tight-lipped New Englanders laugh loudly and often. After moving to the West Coast in early 2006, he further expanded his horizons by producing and appearing in his own self-titled, critically lauded “The Ian Harvie Show, which has been running since April 2007 at Largo in Los Angeles. A post-modern, offbeat and very queer combination of talk-show and variety entertainment, “The Ian Harvie Show” is a grab bag treat which features not just brilliant stand-up by Harvie and his guests, but also compelling and seriously entertaining in-depth interviews with talented performers like Alan Cumming, actresses Jorja Fox and Jane Lynch, and award winning adult film star and Trans-man Buck Angel.

Audiences of every possible cross-section of society are quick to relate to- and laugh along with- Ian’s eccentric views on love, families, adolescence, substance abuse, and gender identification , as well as his acute dissection on the circus act that is the stunt double for today’s popular culture.