Kathleen Madigan is Going Mad at the Mahaiwe
 Photo by Traci Gilland/ICONYC
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In a recent phone interview, Madigan opened up with both barrels about family life, her high-profile funny friends (i.e. Wanda Sykes and Ron White) and the fact that not everything is funny.
Question: Is there anything that is off-limits in terms of what you include in your routine?
Answer: I make a lot of fun of my family, especially my dad. I have six siblings and there's a lot that goes on. The more I do this and the deeper I get in the family jokes I see that a lot of families, especially Irish-Catholics, have the same experience. My youngest brother, Patrick, got drunk on Christmas Eve and suddenly blurted out, "You know, nobody in this family cares about my feelings." We all just kind of looked at him and nodded our heads. Yup, that's correct. But they know that I wouldn't cross lines. Although, when my dad was a judge and I did a skit about how he let me and my mom decide his cases he asked if I could hold off on that one until he retired.
Q: How do you even begin to think about being a comedian as a career? Were there other options?
A: Actually, I really wanted to be a jockey. I'm the right height, the right weight and I thought "how cool would I look in green satin with this red hair?" But that didn't happen. Ended up bartending for a really long time and I would be working the slow nights, you know, Monday or Tuesday, and there would be these older guys there in their mid-fifties and I'd have to kind of entertain them. I didn't know that you could do this for a living. I thought maybe I could perform for some extra fun money. In the Midwest they just didn't tell us anything about what was out there.
Q: Can you tell if you're going to have a good show? Are you able to feel out the audience at all?
A: I can usually tell more if I'm going to have a rough show rather than a good show. It's usually a corporate gig in a ballroom. You know, a big money event where everybody's super uptight. A couple of times I've been surprised by these shows, but not many.
Q: Who do you think is funny? Who inspires you to do what you do?
A: Well, you can't be any funnier than Wanda Sykes or Louis Black or Ron White. They're all really good friends of mine. My little brother is hands-down funnier than I am; he's a stock broker and a financial adviser. If I need a good laugh I'll call him. The other day he was telling me about this one couple he was advising and how they were really struggling financially but they kept asking him if they could afford a hot tub. "It never ceases to amaze me how red necks love hot tubs," he said. At some point it becomes funny. These are the people in my life who totally get it. I especially admire comedians who don't quit. I see a lot of comedians who quit and that's understandable. It's a life built on chaos and uncertainty. I sometimes worry that I'll be in my 50s at a gross club somewhere on the road. That's why I'm saving up my money to open a bar if I need to.
