First Lady of Rhode Island Comedy

The Rhode Island Comedy Hall of Fame has been honoring the state’s funniest people since 2011, but this boys’ club is about to induct its very first woman. Doreen Collins is poised to go where no Rhode Island woman has gone before as she is inducted into the Hall of Fame at a traditional comedy roast on October 3.

Doreen is known for her on-stage spoofing of local celebrities and for her one-woman show Boozical the Musical: The UnOrganized Biography of Doreen Collins, a 90-minute original musical full of comedy, song parodies and 11 costume changes. Though she’ll be the first woman in the Rhode Island Comedy Hall of Fame, Doreen cites trailblazing comediennes Sophie Tucker, Phyllis Diller and Joan Rivers as her sources of inspiration.

“They are the women who entered a male dominated field at a time when women were supposed to be home, in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant,” she says. To young funny females who might admire her, she says, “be the kind of funny that makes people think. Then people will think you’re funny.” Doreen will be inducted at a public comedy roast at the Pub On Park in Cranston. Her roasters will include Congressman David Cicilline, news anchor Dan Jaehnig of Channel 10, the Very Reverend Father Bernard Healey and others.

Rhode Island Comedy Hall of Fame Roast of Doreen Collins 
October 3, 8pm
$25, Pub on Park
661 Park Avenue, Cranston