Arts & Entertainment

Kathleen Madigan Returns to The Musical Hall, Armed With Her Unique Brand of Observational Humor

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Comedian Kathleen Madigan

April 4, 2024

By W.B. King–

Growing up in a large Irish Catholic clan in Missouri, Kathleen Madigan was surrounded by a quirky, fun-loving bunch of characters who embraced a strong work ethic. Becoming a professional comic wasn’t on her radar, or anyone else’s for that matter.

“I didn’t pay attention to standup comedy. My parents always had music on, but they didn’t play the ‘Cosby’ album or other comedy albums like some of my friend’s parents did,” Madigan told The Hudson Independent. One of seven children, her mother was a nurse and her father, a lawyer. “And the Tonight Show back then…if Johnny Carson had on someone like Buddy Hackett, I didn’t even realize he was a comedian. I thought he was a funny person who happened to stop by.”

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After studying at the University of Missouri, St. Louis for two years, Madigan transferred to Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, where she worked at the student newspaper and later earned a bachelor’s of art degree in journalism. Later that same year, 1988, she took a job as a print journalist at a regional newspaper. At night, she frequented open mic nights where she began telling jokes — observational humor based primarily on her personal life — and slowly developed a following.

“I had the best press kit. You would have thought that by looking at my press kit that I had already been doing comedy for 30 years and was super famous,” she said, between laughs. “Back then, you needed to have a real resume — it needed to look right.” When fellow struggling comics saw her media kit, they often asked for help from the crafty journalist. “The first time, I did it for free, and then I charged fifty bucks.”

Funny Bone

Soon Madigan was playing the main room at The Funny Bone in St. Louis, a comedy club chain with locations nationwide. She was next offered a 30-week run of paid shows that would take her around the country for the first time. In 1989, she dropped the newspaper gig to pursue a career in comedy, and never looked back.

“My first introduction to comedy was the clubs. I did see Ron White. He still is one of my favorites — the way he puts words together. Brett Butler was extremely smart and searing. Roseanne [Barr]…when she was acting normal…could be crazy funny,” she recalled. “But none of those people were famous at the time. I just learned from these people who were like 10 years older than me.”

As she caught the acts of other notable comics like Richard Jeni, Ray Romano and her “BFF” to this day Lewis Black, Madigan’s career began taking on a shape of its own. And while standup comedy is traditionally a male dominated field, being a woman has never slowed her down.

“Standup is completely fair. If you’re funny and sell tickets and make money, they don’t care who is up there. It literally could be an orangutan,” she said. “I specifically remember meeting a ton of funny women in Houston and Minneapolis, but they didn’t like the idea of the road as much as guys might like it.” Conversely, after her first comedy tour, Madigan became enamored with the lifestyle, often performing upwards of 250 nights per year.

‘I Just Like to Tell Jokes’

Noting the talents of Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, along with the likes of Johnny Carson and David Letterman, Madigan said female comedians haven’t been proportionally represented in hosting roles on late night network television talk shows. But more optimistically, she pointed to the Carsey-Werner Company, which produced shows with female comic leads such as Roseanne(Roseanne Barr) and Grace Under Fire (Brett Butler), among other programs. These shows, she offered, paved the way for many future female comics.

“Marcy Carsey was the first to give female comedians a sitcom,” noted Madigan, who added that she was never interested in pursuing a situational comedy deal of her own. “I don’t find the joy in any of that, so I didn’t really try. I just like to tell jokes. The only thing I tried for, and I only got one, was commercials. Back then, I was like ‘I will totally be in a mayonnaise commercial if someone is going to give me fifty grand’ — that was all the money in the world to me.”

Along with winning the American Comedy Award for “Best Female Comedian” and the Phyllis Diller award for “Best Female Comedian,” Madigan has appeared countless times on late night talk shows and completed USO tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Additionally, she was a guest on Jerry Seinfeld’s Netflix series, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. “She makes a lot sense, but not too much sense — just enough to be hilarious,” Seinfeld said, touting his fellow comedian.

Madigan has also starred in numerous comedy specials of her own on Netflix, Comedy Central and HBO. In 2023, her Amazon Prime special, Hunting Bigfoot, was released to critical acclaim. “Usually on stage, I’m talking about the places I’ve been traveling, a little bit of current events, whether it be politics or sports or whatever, and the rest of it is about big Irish Catholic family craziness,” she shared. “Now, it’s also a lot about older people because my parents are getting old.”

For many years, Madigan’s parents, siblings and extended family have been fodder for her act, but recently she has received considerable feedback from fans between the ages of 40 and 60 who are also lovingly dealing with concerns related to aging parents. She recalled talking to friend and pondered: “I don’t think my parent’s had a plan.” Her friend responded: “Kathleen, they had a plan. The plan was us.”

“I don’t think my parents thought they would live this long,” she added, recalling a recent conversation with her mother. Madigan had inquired if they had actually made end of life arrangements. “We talked about all of that,” her mother replied. Madigan then asked: What was his [Dad’s] opinion? “She said, ‘Well, I don’t really remember.’”

Over the last two years, Madigan has been searching Google on related topics, typing queries like: What is the normal amount of dementia? “That’s not something I would normally be doing,” she said, laughing. “So, there needs to be a lot more of that in my act because some of these things are funny. I’m just trying to lighten up the conversation.”

Comedy is Like Golf

Like most touring performers, Madigan was grounded for nearly two years by the pandemic, a topic she elaborates on in Hunting Bigfoot. “As a comedian, I was told by the government to stay home and watch TV and I nailed it. I’m just saying, I’m kind of an American hero,” she quipped during the special that was filmed at the Paramount Theater in Denver, Colo.

The perils of COVID-19 also gave rise to her well-received podcast, Madigan’s Pubcast, where she discusses topical and random subjects, while surrounded by a semicircle of life-sized cardboard cutouts of Dolly Parton, Cher, Snoop Dogg, Jelly Roll, Taylor Swift and Stevie Nicks.

When Madigan returns to the Tarrytown Music Hall on April 19, she may lean on past material; however, with seven hours of jokes documented in comedy specials over the course of her career, her memory recall isn’t perfect. And unlike a rock band, once topical witticisms don’t always age as well as celebrated songs.

“I do a few [older jokes] but I can’t repeat like music people can. I just saw Stevie Nicks and I was happy because she played every song [I wanted to hear], but she didn’t do any new stuff and with music that is why a lot of us are coming. I want to hear songs like ‘Landslide’ and ‘Gypsy’,” she said. Performing jokes from 1992, she added, would be weird. “You have to keep writing new stuff, mixing it in and jumbling it up.”

Another way she keeps her performances interesting is by rotating the opening act. For the Tarrytown stop on her “The Potluck Party” tour, comedian Michael Somerville will open the show.

“If you use the same opener over and over, it usually doesn’t end well, so I like to have someone every four or five weeks and then get a new opener. And this is the only reason I know so much about the younger comics,” Madigan said, noting she often checks out promising upstarts on YouTube and TikTok. Paying it forward is a principle she learned early on in her career.

“When I started, everyone was so nice to me. As a female comic, I felt like I had a great group of older brothers. I never felt negativity,” she said. “Jeff Foxworthy — those blue-collar guys — to this day are the nicest people, and generous. Brett Butler…all of these different people helped somehow, if they could.”

An advocate and fundraiser for Cystic Fibrosis and Autism causes, Madigan is also a golf enthusiast who often hits the links with her parents. Whether shooting for a birdie, boogie or albatross, her two passions have certain similarities.

“I never felt like it [being a comic] was a competition. It felt like we were all playing golf. If I can get you into this tournament, I will, but I’m playing to shoot my best score,” she said. “So, comedy is like golf. Play your own game and keep your head down.”

For ticket information, visit: www.tarrytownmusichall.org.

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