If Christmas drives you crazy and Hanukkah makes you hostile, UAB’s Alys Stephens Center has the perfect antidote — an evening of holiday comedy with the one and only Joan Rivers.

 November 29, 2010

Joan Rivers. Download image.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - If Christmas drives you crazy and Hanukkah makes you hostile, UAB's Alys Stephens Center has the perfect antidote - an evening of holiday comedy with the one and only Joan Rivers.

The legendary entertainer will roast the holidays at 7 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 12, 2010, in the center, 1200 10th Ave. South. Comic Mick Lazinski will open for Rivers. The show will contain adult subject matter and language; please note there will be no late seating for this performance. The evening will begin with a "Bash the Holidays" Red Carpet Party featuring live music from The Martini Shakers at 5:30 p.m. with cash bar, martini drink specials and holiday noshes. Guests also can riff on Rivers' past as a fashion correspondent and critic by walking the Alys Stephens Center's own red carpet and enjoying fashion fun with My Scoop. Prizes and fashion citations for Best and Worst Dressed will be awarded. It's all the frivolity you'd expect from the "anti-holiday" party. Tickets are $65, $55, $40; $20 for student tickets. Call 205-975-2787 or go to www.AlysStephens.org. Additionally, ASC-JPs receive ticket discounts, drink coupons and more

Rivers is an internationally renowned comedienne, Tony-nominated actress, best-selling author, Emmy Award-winning television talk show host, playwright, screenwriter, motion picture director, columnist, lecturer, syndicated radio host, jewelry designer and cosmetic company entrepreneur, red carpet fashion laureate, businesswoman and most importantly a proud mother and grandmother, according to her press biography. During her long and successful career spanning more than four decades in the entertainment industry, Rivers has perfected her own brand of bluntly irreverent and unconventional comedy.

Rivers got her start playing to tawdry clubs and cabarets and in 1968 her career took off when she appeared on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson." Within three years she was hosting "That Show with Joan Rivers," one of the first syndicated daytime shows. She soon made television history as the first sole guest host of "The Tonight Show."  Her own "The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers" helped launch the Fox Network in 1986. In 1989, she returned to daytime television with "The Joan Rivers Show," winning an Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show Host and her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Today she's working as hard as ever. In 2009, she starred in and won NBC's hit reality series "The Celebrity Apprentice" with her daughter Melissa. Along with Melissa, Rivers hosted E!'s red-carpet events from 1996-2004 and in 2010, to the delight of fashion fans everywhere, returned to E!'s Red Carpet. From her signature question "Can we talk?" to her red-carpet mantra "Who are you wearing?" Rivers is instantly recognizable, a true entertainer and always up for a laugh.

This show is sponsored by My Scoop, ASC-JPs, The Birmingham News, the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Viva Health.

About UAB's Alys Stephens Center

The Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center, part of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, is one of the Southeast's premier performing arts centers, hosting the best in international, national and local performance. Home to the UAB departments of Theatre and Music and the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, the ASC also presents its own season, bringing the world's best music, dance, theater, comedy and family entertainment to Alabama.