She’d rather entertain: Queer icon Sandra Bernhard brings new show to the Iron Horse next week

Through five decades in the entertainment industry, comedian, author, actress, and radio host Sandra Bernhard has done a lot – and, next weekend, she’ll bring that experience and love of performing to Northampton.

Bernhard will be performing her newest show, “Shapes & Forms,” at the Iron Horse on Saturday, July 26, at 7 p.m.

“Shapes & Forms” will be very much in the style of Bernhard’s previous shows, albeit with new material.

“I’m always creating, writing, thinking, observing,” she said. “I’m always doing new shows because that’s just part of my career, it’s part of my life, and it’s just something that I plan on always doing.” A continuous creative process like that, she added, is “how things keep staying fresh and you’re able to tap into new veins in the mind.”

(That said, Bernhard didn’t want to share any specific details on those new stories – “It’s like telling a punchline to a joke – then nobody wants to hear the joke.” Plus, the show format gives her plenty of room for improvisation.)

What we can know ahead of time, according to a press release, is that the show promises to “turn your world upside down with stories of recent dinners out east to exotic adventures around the globe, interwoven with the songs you’ve come to expect from Sandy – Lana, Stevie, Cat, Lionel, Burt and a million surprises.”

Outside of her live comedy career, Bernhard is also the host of SiriusXM’s weekly show “Sandyland,” the author of three books, a recording artist, and a film and television actress. Bernhard has made guest appearances in numerous shows and movies – you may have seen her as Nurse Cecily on “Severance,” as Darlene Linetti (Gina’s mom) on “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” as Fran on “American Horror Story,” as Nurse Judy Kubrak on “Pose,” or as a guest judge on season 17 of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” among many other roles.

One of Bernhard’s previous guest roles was as a waitress on “Broad City,” which also has a local connection: executive producer, director, and writer Lucia Aniello grew up in Hadley.

“All the smart people in the business have come from places where there’s a wealth of material and ideas,” Bernhard said.

This isn’t Bernhard’s first time in Northampton, but it’s been a while – and, in any case, she’s eager to be back.

“I love coming to college towns,” she said. “I think people are just more plugged-in intellectually, and they’re more inquisitive and want to know what I’m thinking and also are thinkers themselves, so I think that they relate to topics and the level of what interests me and not just the mundane and quotidian.”

It also helps, of course, that Northampton – like Provincetown, another upcoming tour stop – has a sizable LGBTQ community, of which Bernhard herself is a member. On the show “Roseanne,” Bernhard played Nancy Bartlett, whose character arc included a marriage to a man, followed by a relationship with a woman, making her the first recurring bisexual character in a U.S. sitcom, according to The Guardian. Last year, Bernhard was featured in “Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution,” a documentary about the history of queer standup comedy that also featured Lily Tomlin, Wanda Sykes, and Rosie O’Donnell, among others.

Still, even in a challenging time for LGBTQ Americans, Bernhard shies away from making a show too political – if she were to do that, she said, audiences would walk out. She’d rather entertain: “That’s my job as a performer, to write pieces that are fun and full of life and musically [sic] and edgy and explosive and take people out of their day-to-day monotony and doldrums, especially with everything that’s happening.”

After five decades, what keeps Bernhard going as a performer?

“Living life and really being engaged,” she said. “Of course I like doing fun, fabulous things, but that’s not the reality of anybody’s life. You’ve got to be anchored in things that have depth.”

Those things, she said, include her relationships with her partner and their daughter, as well as “just trying to see through all of the haze of what’s happening politically, which is not easy.”

“You’ve got to find your way every day so that, as an artist, you can bring positivity to your audience, because nobody wants to come and hear a litany of complaints about the world. You can watch the news for that,” she said. “So I’d like to try to lift people out of that, up to a higher sort of plane.”

Tickets to “Shapes & Forms” are $54 (including fees) general admission or $78 for reserved mezzanine seats via ironhorse.org.

Carolyn Brown can be reached at [email protected].