Lady Parts Justice League brings comedy tour to LR

Laughter and activism team up as the Lady Parts Justice League brings its comedy tour to Vino's in Little Rock on Saturday.

Started in 2012 by Daily Show co-founder Lizz Winstead, the Lady Parts Justice League is a group of writers and comedians using humor to talk about reproductive rights.

"We believe if there is not laughter, dancing and sexy time in your revolution, you need to fix that," goes the league's credo.

The group began "with a bunch of comedians and writers and producers who all feel like their reproductive health, and having control over it, was sort of what allowed them to have the careers that they have and wanted to use their voices to help preserve that right for other people," Winstead says from the league's Brooklyn office.

"We started out making videos," she continues. "I'd been out on the road doing fundraisers for [family planning] clinics and the constant mantra from people working at the clinics was 'Thanks for coming. Not a lot of people ever come to visit us.'"

Winstead saw the league as a chance to create a "group looking out for the providers and lifting their spirits. It got a little unwieldy to do these one-off shows, so we decided to do a tour and we're going to places where really cool people can meet other really cool people to grow their community base and give the clinics the support they need."

Set to join Winstead, who will be the evening's hostess, are transgender comedian Ian Harvie from the Amazon series Transparent; Joyelle Johnson, who has opened for Dave Chapelle and appears on the comedy series Night Train with Wyatt Cernac, and Alex English.

"We have a trans dude, a gay dude, a black woman and an old white lady," says the 65-year-old Winstead, a die-hard political satirist and standup comic who created Snap Judgment for Court TV and was the consulting producer for the pilot of The Man Show. "We're going to have some fun."

While the subject matter may seem heavy, Winstead points out that comedy is a good way to address such topics. And not every performer will focus on politics.

"There's no requirement that everybody's got to be political," she says. "Everybody has to be funny and care about the issue, but they don't necessarily have to talk about it. That's what's nice about [the show]. It can be funny, outrageous and amazing. Then you can sprinkle in some information where people will feel like, 'Great. You're helping me if I want to stand up and take some action when it comes to making my community better.'"

Weekend on 06/08/2017