Performance by Nellie McKay

McKay co-created and starred in the award-winning off-Broadway hit Old Hats and has written three acclaimed musical biographies – I Want to Live!, the story of Barbara Graham, third woman executed in the gas chamber at San Quentin, Silent Spring: It’s Not Nice to Fool Mother Nature, an exploration of environmental pioneer Rachel Carson, and A GIRL NAMED BILL – The Life and Times of Billy Tipton, named one of the Best Concerts of 2014 by The New York Times.  Her latest lady bio is The Big Molinsky – Considering Joan Rivers (“unpredictable, thrilling…sardonic wit..” – The New York Times).

Nellie’s music has been heard on Mad Men, Boardwalk Empire, Weeds, Grey’s Anatomy, NCIS, Nurse Jackie, and SMILF, and she has appeared on TV shows including The Late Show with David Letterman, Conan, Ferguson, and The View.  Nellie has made numerous radio appearances on NPR’s Mountain Stage, A Prairie Home Companion, eTown, and Marion McPartland’s Piano Jazz.  The Chase Brock Experience produced a ballet of her third album, Obligatory Villagers, and she contributed the forward to the 20th anniversary edition of The Sexual Politics of Meat.  Her writing has also appeared in The Onion, Interview and The New York Times Book Review.

A recipient of PETA’s Humanitarian Award and the Humane Society’s Doris Day Music Award in recognition of her dedication to animal rights, Nellie is an annoyingly vocal advocate for feminism, civil rights and other deeply felt progressive ideals.  She is currently part of the campaign to get horse-drawn carriages off the streets of New York City.  She would like to be friends with Russia, the country with the most nuclear weapons in the world.  We must all be very kind to one another.