Laughing at Life in New Brunswick

Late nights, traveling from club to club, and hecklers are the typical challenges faced by standup comics, but that’s all a piece of cake for Kathleen Madigan, who has recently performed for American troops fighting the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The shows are great because the troops are so appreciative, they’re a blast,” Madigan says.  “But Afghanistan, I don’t understand at all what’s going on there. Iraq, you can at least see, OK, there used to be a city here, there used to be civilization. Afghanistan looks like the moon with a goat on it.”

Madigan’s environs will be much more comfortable, and certainly goat-free, when she takes stage at the State Theatre in New Brunswick on Sept. 10. She’ll be performing new material and also some favorites—fans insist on hearing her ruminations on growing up Catholic and her jokes about her father.

Madigan grew up in Missouri and says she tried standup because there were a lot of other things she just couldn’t do.

“I sucked at science and math, so that took out all the good careers,” she says. “I became a journalist but I was really lazy and I wasn’t interested in much, so that wasn’t good.”

She was working as a waitress when she first tried standup at an open mic night. She was eventually hosting open mics and was able to make as much money doing standup as she did as a waitress, and decided to give the comic’s life a try.

She went on to become a finalist on the second season of NBC’s “Last Comic Standing” and was a judge on that show’s fifth season. She shared her jokes on David Letterman and Jay Leno’s shows, and hosted her own Showtime special, “Gone Madigan.”

She’s been at the laugh game for 22 years, and with all that success, she says she didn’t have a breakthrough moment, mainly because the nature of standup comedy changed in the post-Johnny Carson “Tonight Show” world.

“It wasn’t like you could go on the Carson show overnight and there were only three channels and two-thirds of the country watched Johnny Carson so in one shot, two-thirds of the country could see you,” she says. When her generation of comics started out, there were comics everywhere on multiple late-night shows and cable outlets. “Ours is more of a marathon than a sprint to a big break. There never is a big break now, you just keep going.”

She keeps going by performing and writing, though she doesn’t quite have what you’d call a “writing process.”

“Things just fly into my head and I write them on a bar napkin usually,” she says. “Most of my life is on a bar napkin somewhere in my purse. And then I take that bar napkin before I go on stage…Most of it I write on stage, that’s why if I’m not working I’m probably not writing, which is not good.”

There have been times when she’s lost a napkin with some funny stuff on it. As a backup, she texts her jokes to her friend, Lewis Black, so that her thoughts are safe.

She calls Black her closest friend among comedians. She says both share a crazy streak, though their on-stage personas are quite different, Lewis is all about anger, while Madigan seems bemused by the absurdity around her. This came up when both comics appeared on Stephanie Miller’s syndicated radio show.
“We (Madigan and Miller) talked about how all the anger and rage was beaten out of us as kids,” Madigan says. “I said to Lewis, he’s a nice Jewish boy and no one has ever beaten him and look at the rage he’s left with. If someone would just smack him once or twice, he’d simmer down and be more lighthearted.”

She and Lewis have also appeared in USO shows in Afghanistan and Iraq with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen. She’s entertained troops with people like Black, Kid Rock, Robin Williams, Kellie Pickler and Lance Armstrong.

Armstrong isn’t a joke-teller, he served as an emcee, but Madigan couldn’t help joking with Black that Armstrong was leading a Pilates class for the troops.

“And Lewis, ‘Are you kidding me? Where are they getting those kinds of bicycles?’ I said, ‘I’m kidding Lewis!’” she says.

And her USO regimen is quite different from Armstrong’s. During down time, she says, Armstrong is going on runs with soldiers regardless of the sizzling heat and other conditions.

“Lance would take his hour and go jog with the soldiers while Lew and I were chain smoking in bunk beds,” she says. “And I’m like, How he can jog in this? There were sand storms and big warnings – don’t go outside – and he’s out jogging in it.”

Kathleen Madigan will perform at the State Theatre, located at 15 Livingston Ave. in New Brunswick, at 8 p.m. Sept. 10. Tammy Pescatelli will be the opening act. Tickets cost $14-$39. For ticket information, go to www.statetheatrenj.org or call 732-246-7469.