For this comedian and Kansas City regular, Missouri is a prime target for laughs
Kathleen Madigan had just jumped into the world of stand-up when she first appeared at the old Slapstix Comedy Club in south Kansas City.
It was September 1989, and the St. Louis native was 23 years old. She had abandoned a budding journalism career for bartending, which she said paid better than local journalism.
But when Madigan and another bartender went to a comedy club on an open-mic night, she discovered her true destiny — even if she didn’t realize it at the time. She and her friend listened to a few lame attempts at comedy and decided they were funnier than those guys. It turned into an “I’ll do it if you do it” kind of thing.
Thirty years later, she’s still doing it.
“Mostly, it was just that I fell into it,” she said during a recent telephone interview. “This wasn’t my dream. It was somebody else’s dream. But I’m happy to be in it.”
Kansas City has been a setting in that dream right from the start. In fact, if a history of comedy in Kansas City were written, Kathleen Madigan would likely be in almost every chapter.
From Slapstix, it was on to Stanford Glazer’s and Stanford and Sons — all three of which are defunct — and the Improv in Zona Rosa. She began performing at the Midland, now the Arvest Bank Theatre at the Midland, in 2011 and has returned for shows there almost annually.
Madigan will perform again at the Midland on Jan. 11.
After falling into her new career, Madigan quickly climbed the comedy ladder. She starred in an HBO special by the time she was 25 and became a favorite on the talk shows of Jay Leno, David Letterman and others.
She says her approach hasn’t changed much over the years. For example, you won’t hear her riffing on the Kardashians.
“What have they done?” she said. “I don’t know anything about them other than they have black hair. I’m not interested in that. I’d rather watch the Chiefs.
“I’m always going to be the same I was 30 years ago. My subjects have always been Mid-America, normal people. Traveling, family, my parents, current events, things that happen to normal people.”
Especially when those people are from Missouri.
She recently came across a news story online about a church leader who tried lure sex partners on Grnder with his Arby’s card.
“Of course, he had to be from Missouri,” she said.
The jokes almost write themselves.
Sex isn’t typically a big topic in Madigan’s act, however. In fact, some younger female comics who dwell on their sex lives and body parts leave her dumbfounded.
“Aren’t they bored with this stuff yet?” she asked. “I hear some of this stuff, and … ‘Did you really just say that?’ I like the woman comics who don’t do that. I’m on the team that doesn’t do that, but we’re not the popular team right now.”
Her team, or at least her closest comic comrades, is actually doing all right.
She has chatted with Jerry Seinfeld on his Netflix show, “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee,” and two of her closest friends are comic icons Lewis Black — they go golfing together — and Ron White — they go fishing.
“Lewis is what I call an indoor cat,” she said. “Ron is an outdoor cat.”
Madigan says she is a “pretty good” golfer, but her major claim to athletic fame came when she was 12 years old and won a free-throw shooting competition.
“I was 4-9 and did them all underhand,” she said. “I didn’t play any sports after that. I retired at 12. A lot of people could learn from that.”
Madigan, who graduated from McCluer North High School and Southern Illinois University, is a big sports fan, especially of St. Louis’ professional teams.
She hasn’t forgiven Rams owner and Columbia native Stan Kroenke for moving the team from St. Louis to Los Angeles.
“I was asked by a guy in L.A. if I still root for the Rams,” she said. “No, I not only don’t root for them, I wish Stan Kroenke would fall out of the owner’s box and crash face down in the middle of the field.”
She still watches the NFL, however, and is something of a Chiefs fan now. That fits with her Missouri persona.
One of seven siblings, Madigan has a brother who lives in Kansas City, a sister in Jefferson City, a brother in Columbia and a sister in St. Charles. Her parents live at the Lake of the Ozarks, where her family frequently vacationed and where she now also owns “an old-school condo.”
“I bought it close to my parents so I don’t drink and drive,” she said. “It was definitely an alcohol-driven decision.”
Since her recent sale of a house in Los Angeles, the Osage Beach place is the closest thing to home she has. She tours year-round, spending about 250 nights on the road, so she sleeps the vast majority of nights in hotel rooms.
Despite 30 years of that, Madigan still isn’t ready to quit, although she is targeting age 60 for her retirement.
“I’ve had a lovely time,” she said, “but there are a million other things I’d like to do.”
Having won the American Comedy Award and the Phyllis Diller Award, both for the nation’s top female comedian, and having starred in three Netflix specials, she has little else to prove.
Her most recent Netflix show, “Bothering Jesus” — which opens with several jokes about her home state — spawned a top-selling 2018 album by the same name that debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard comedy charts.
Meanwhile, she’s looking forward to playing the Midland, which she calls one of her favorite venues, along with Milwaukee’s Pabst (where “Bothering Jesus” was filmed) and Dallas’ Majestic.
“Those are the three rooms all comedians love to work,” she said, indicating the historic theaters have better atmospheres than newer arts centers where “you feel like you should be giving a lecture on dolphins.”
“The Midland is just awesome.”
Saturday
Kathleen Madigan performs at 8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 11, at Arvest Bank Theatre at the Midland. Tickets are $29.50 through arvestbanktheatre.com. 816-283-9921