Having won fans last year with the Obama Girls, Claudia Cogan returns to the Boot at 10pm  tonight with Under the Gaydar. Billed as the gayest and most outrageous comedy tour in the US, the show will also feature the talents of Dave Rubin, Jackie Monahan and Shawn Hollenbach.  Tickets are $12 and can be purchased online at the official site or on The Boot’s website. A portion of proceeds will be donated to ACCESS AIDS Care.

I'm Claudia, how you like it so far?

Having honed her dry and sarcastic wit over seven years of stand-up in New York, Cogan has become known as a pugnacious comic.

“A friend once described me as wielding a Nerf sword… I poke people but they don’t really get hurt,” she says. Though always out as a performer, Cogan never deliberately sought to make her orientation a topic of comedy, but naturally let it inform her material as she became more confident onstage.

“I can’t help talking about it,” she explains, “but that’s just because I can’t help talking about everything.”

Gravitating towards small rooms and alternative venues, Cogan bonded with her fellow Under the Gaydites struggling through the comedy trenches nightly.

“We’re all comedians first, gay in form but a bit more subtle, unique, self-informed,” she says. On tour, she seeks out venues like the Boot, which are open to the obvious differences between her crew and average Chuckle Hut fodder.

“We’re more writerly,” Cogan explains.

Though Friday’s show will benefit a worthy cause, Cogan describes her motives as more selfish than altruistic.

“An audience always shows up and is around. They want us,” she says, “and we want them.”