“Wildly inventive, completely nuts, and charming through-and-through.”
-Flavorpill
For 13 years, Rhinestone Gorilla has been entertaining audiences in historic theatres, smoky nightclubs, and dingey dive bars alike with our ribald humor, goofy exuberance, dad jam belting, and never-ending costume changes. Whether in our native NYC or on tour across the country, our nearly 200 unique live shows are joyous, goofy, sloppy, sexy, political, heartfelt, and life-affirming celebrations at the intersection of burlesque, drag, performance art, musical theatre, and comedy.
Now, Rhinestone Gorilla has expanded into a whole new medium with At Home with Rhinestone Gorilla, a musical sitcom that follows four out of work showgirls in New York and New Mexico as they attempt to stay close, stay creative, and stay sane during what they suspect might be the apocalypse.
Featuring puppets, animation, neo-burlesque acts, and original songs, At Home with Rhinestone Gorilla is one part Brooklyn nightlife, one part children's television. Created by Jenny Weinbloom (executive producer, Meow Wolf) At Home with Rhinestone Gorilla is a high femme Pee-wee's Playhouse; a colorful, surreal celebration of kitsch, nostalgia, lo-fi glamour, and the complexities of decades-long female friendships.
The people in your neighborhood have never been this fabulous!
![[left to right] Angelique A’LaMode, Avian Rush, Lucida Sans, Kinky Demure](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f2f1500c542ed5446670d9d/1609729772165-Y2Z2AIMM6D8UBWYPX2BY/Screen+Shot+2021-01-03+at+12.05.59+AM.png)
[left to right] Angelique A’LaMode, Avian Rush, Lucida Sans, Kinky Demure
Jenny Weinbloom, aka LUCIDA SANS is the producing artistic director of Rhinestone Gorilla and executive producer and showrunner on At Home with Rhinestone Gorilla. She is a seasoned writer, producer, director, and performer with nearly fifteen years of experience in nightlife, comedy and immersive. Currently Santa Fe-based, previously LA-based and originally NYC-based, she has entertained audiences all over the country in historic theatres, smoky nightclubs, and dingey dive bars alike with her ribald humor, goofy exuberance, dad jam belting, and never-ending costume changes. In addition to her onstage work with Rhinestone Gorilla, she was the resident emcee and co-producer of Bedtime Stories, Meow Wolf’s monthly neo-burlesque variety show.
On the other side of her show biz life, Jenny is a passion-driven executive producer, creative director, and showrunner of large scale exhibitions, attractions, immersive, themed entertainment, and interactive storytelling projects. She has been a key player in and producer of some of the premier trailblazing projects of the immersive movement, including Sleep No More and Meow Wolf, and has produced major projects for and in collaboration with Baz Luhrmann, the Radio City Rockettes, Nickelodeon, George R.R. Martin, Star Trek, 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers, and more. www.jennyweinbloom.com
KINKY DEMURE has been gracing the stage on and off since 2008. Nestled deep in the ample bosom of her performance troupe, Rhinestone Gorilla, she has performed acts both adorable and unsettling throughout these here United States to mostly enthusiastic crowds. Her particular brand of high concept, low budget, often creature based stripper comedy has inspired rounds of "awww!" and "Ewww!" from hundreds of crowds over the years at countless shows. She is now thrilled to be involved in Rhinestone Gorilla's new narrative webseries, At Home With Rhinestone Gorilla, available starting on October 8th on Burlesque Galaxy!
She started her descent into iniquity in the SUNY New Paltz collegiate burlesque troupe, Alpha Psi Ecdysia, and continued through the professional troupe that arose from it, Rhinestone Gorilla Burlesque. This performance troupe, now known simply as Rhinestone Gorilla, continues to be her creative family and the best and most artistically nourishing and enabling place to create upsetting sexy garbage.
Kinky exists in various other iterations including as a rope bondage model, educator, and performer. She has had the privilege of performing locally, internationally, and at this years Virtual Folsom Street Fair. She is also a brand-new registered nurse, so if you have connections to a nice hospital in NYC where she should work, you should definitely tell her.
AVIAN RUSH has been performing with Rhinestone Gorilla and its undergraduate predecessor, Alpha Psi Ecdysia, since 2010. Based in NYC, Avian has performed locally as well as in a host of cities across the country. She has graced the stage as a performer and occasional MC at the Sunday night live Jazz burlesque show, The Keepeasy at the Keep, as well as PowerNotPanic at Bizarre Bar, a fundraising variety show for families and individuals detained by I.C.E.
A wandering soul with a talent for making her nest wherever she goes, Avian has produced and performed burlesque, variety, and music for art collaborative shows such as, 158Salon, W.T.Effe., and FoolsGold Duo. She travels through the small blue towns of the red counties in California and New York, spreading the joy of sparkly delicious nonsense to those who know it naught.
Calling NYC home for the past two and a half years, Avian spent her pre-covid time working as an actor. You may have seen her in the immersive show, Zerospace, or the all-female identifying cast of Macbeth as Macbeth at the 14th street Y.
ANGELIQUE A’LAMODE is a founding member of Rhinestone Gorilla and its collegiate predecessor, Alpha Psi Ecdysia. An actor, costume lover, avid crafter, circus-lover, showtune-singer, history nerd, and "Gypsy" worshipper, burlesque was the right place for her! Since 2008 she has performed in many NYC nightlife venues and staple shows of the burlesque scene, as well as in half a dozen states.
Angelique enjoys the tease and the spectacle of burlesque, but truly loves to tell stories, be they recognizable characters from books or film, or gently familiar tropes. She likes to turn classic burlesque ideals on their heads by treating very silly props and actions very seriously. A gifted patter-song singer, Angelique is known for singing Yakko's World from the 90s cartoon Animaniacs while rhythmically stripping out of a sequin gown and clown nose-themed lingerie. She once performed this feat in front of Rob Paulsen, the voice of Yakko Warner, who was heard to repeatedly say "Oh, bless you" in what we assume was approval.
A writer and dramaturg, she will tell anyone who will listen that she holds a Master's in Burlesque, but it’s actually in Theater History and Criticism. Her thesis paper, Semierotic Semiotics: Culture and Signaling in Contemporary Burlesque Performance, was an exercise in thinking very hard about how strippers tell stories and some ways they can tell them better. This is a habit she formed before grad school and has not given up to this day. The paper remains unpublished, but she is happy to talk to you about it - and has been known to read parts of it aloud while stripping out of her cap and gown!
“Just so odd we don’t know what to call it.”
-Time Out New York