Lara Rae

Lara Rae (born 1963 in Glasgow, Scotland), formerly known as Al Rae, is a Canadian comedian, best known as the longtime artistic director of the Winnipeg Comedy Festival and as a frequent guest on the CBC Radio One comedy series The Debaters.

She has also been a writer for radio and television, including on Blackfly, Big Sound, and Monsoon House. She has been a three-time Canadian Comedy Award nominee and a Gemini Award nominee for her work on Little Mosque.

Rae started as half of the Toronto-based comedy duo Al & George with George Westerholm. After the duo broke up in 1993, Rae moved to Winnipeg and began working as a solo standup comedian. She wrote the play How Do You Know When You're Done?, a fictionalized account of their creative tensions and breakup which premiered at the Tim Sims Playhouse in 1999, and was a founder of the Winnipeg Comedy Festival in 2002. At the time of her announcement, she was working as an assistant director on a stage production of Christopher Marlowe's play Edward II in Winnipeg.