Press kit

Short bio

For listings. 50 words.

Cora Vette is a Las Vegas emcee, singer and comic who spent three years as Tanya in Mamma Mia! at Mandalay Bay before taking her vintage dirty jazz and blues into weekly residencies at Lost Spirits Distillery and The Golden Tiki. She produces Denver's Mile HIGH Burlesque Fest and has hosted burlesque festivals across North America and in London.

Medium bio

For programs and web. 130 words.

Cora Vette, offstage Reyna Von Vett, is a Las Vegas emcee, singer, comic and actress. She performed for more than a million guests over three years as Tanya in Mamma Mia! at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, then became mistress of ceremonies and resident singer at Lost Spirits Distillery and held a weekly residency at The Golden Tiki with her late-night cabaret For Adults Only.

In Denver she was the madam of the burlesque scene for years, running weekly nights at Bender's Tavern, Bar Standard and the Voodoo Comedy Playhouse, earning Westword's Best Burlesque Night, and writing two burlesque musicals: the Victorian operetta Leadville or BUST! and the pot opera Reefer Mania: Denver's Gone to Pot. She founded the Mile HIGH Burlesque Fest in 2017 and still produces and hosts it. Her newest album is Lost and Found.

Long bio

For press and festival books. 260 words.

Cora Vette is what happens when a trained musical-theatre actress falls for the filthiest songs of the 1930s. Offstage she is Reyna Von Vett, a Las Vegas veteran who spent three years as Tanya in Mamma Mia! at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, performing for more than a million guests. Onstage she is, in the words of the Austin Chronicle, "the definitive hostess with the mostest, part Mae West, part Blowfly, a dash of Ed Sullivan and a flash of Lisa Lampanelli."

Her passion is vintage music and double entendre: the jazz and blues numbers that were too hot for radio and too good to stay forgotten. That repertoire carried her through residencies in two of Las Vegas's most distinctive rooms, as mistress of ceremonies and singer in the Séance Room at Lost Spirits Distillery and then weekly at The Golden Tiki with her late-night cabaret For Adults Only. Her album Lost and Found collects the songs from those shows; an earlier record, Smokin' Reefers, revived the reefer songs of the 1930s.

Before Las Vegas, Cora built Denver's modern burlesque scene from the stage up. She ran weekly and monthly nights for years, including Black Box Burlesque, BurlyCute and Cora Vette's RestoMod, which Westword named Best Burlesque Night, and she wrote and starred in two full-length burlesque musicals: Leadville or BUST!, a Victorian comic operetta, and Reefer Mania: Denver's Gone to Pot. In 2017 she founded the Mile HIGH Burlesque Fest, a two-night, two-venue festival over 4/20 weekend that she still produces and hosts.

She has hosted the London, Edmonton, New Orleans, Texas, Southern Fried, Show Me, Southwest and Hollywood burlesque festivals, Hot Rods and Heels in Dallas, and the Viva Las Vegas Burlesque Showcase. She is based in Las Vegas and travels.

What's been said

Quotes are reproduced as published. Sources are linked where they're still online.

The definitive hostess with the mostest, part Mae West, part Blowfly, a dash of Ed Sullivan and a flash of Lisa Lampanelli, she's the glue that holds the show together, the turbine that speeds it along, and the joke-dealing, pun-wielding mistress of the nod and the wink.

Richard Whittaker, The Austin Chronicle

The reigning madam of Denver's burlesque scene.

Westword, Best of Denver 2014, Best Burlesque Night, for Cora Vette's RestoMod

It's the biggest, baddest burlesque night that Cora Vette's ever put together, and that's saying something. Wowza!

Westword, Best of Denver 2014

A perfect evening of just-naughty-enough entertainment by a group of very talented women.

Amber Taufen, Westword, on Leadville or BUST!

Burlesque madame extraordinaire.

Westword

Credits

Residencies and theatre

Tanya, Mamma Mia!, Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, Las Vegas three years, one million guests
Mistress of ceremonies and singer, the Séance Room, Lost Spirits Distillery, Las Vegas
Weekly residency, For Adults Only, The Golden Tiki, Las Vegas
Black Box Burlesque, Bender's Tavern and Bar Standard, Denver weekly, then monthly
Cora Vette's RestoMod, Voodoo Comedy Playhouse, Denver Westword Best Burlesque Night 2014
BurlyCute, Denver including Naughty Noel and Too Sexy for the Stock Show

Produced and written

Mile HIGH Burlesque Fest, Denver founder, producer and host, 2017 to present
Tickled Pink, The Oriental Theater producer, host, singer
GALS Weekender, The Oriental Theater producer and host, 22 performers from the US and Canada
Leadville or BUST! writer and star; Crossroads Theater and Denver Civic Theatre
Reefer Mania: Denver's Gone to Pot writer and star; Crossroads Theater
The Cannabis Cabaret Pot Pavilion, Denver County Fair
Cora Vette's Hot Rods boylesque revue