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Dues paid, comedian Madigan is on a roll

After 23 years of standup, she’s being labeled a rising star.

Contributing Writer Kathleen Madigan

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By Terry Morris, Staff Writer 11:45 AM Saturday, January 28, 2012

Kathleen Madigan sees no contradiction between her 23 years of standup work and being labeled a “rising star of comedy.”

“It absolutely takes 20 years of doing comedy on the road to get started,” said the comedian whose recent arrival as one of the best has been measured in superlatives including “one of the nine funniest women on the planet.”

Daytonians can see for themselves when Madigan appears at the Victoria Theatre Friday, Feb. 3, for one night only.

A few to several years ago, she would have been working a comedy club instead of an arts center, and she has no intention of avoiding clubs now.

Same goes for Las Vegas, where this summer she will headline the Mirage Hotel, “which is just across from all of the comedy clubs.”

My whole family likes drinking and gambling, so they’ll come to see me,” said Madigan, who grew up in St. Louis.

“I tell them it took me 23 years to cross the street.”

Madigan is proudly and almost stubbornly down to earth.

“I was interviewing to hire a publicist a while back and one company told me they excel at getting their clients to red carpet events. I would never want to do one of those. Comedians don’t think of ourselves as being in showbiz,” she said.

“We’re not celebrities. We’re all still just road comics at heart, Jay Leno still goes to the club on Sunday nights. Last night I saw Joan Rivers at the West Bank Cafe, a basement club in New York that must seat all of 100,” she said during a phone interview on Wednesday.

Madigan, who made her second USO tour in late 2010, entertaining the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, is riding the momentum of her recent Showtime special “Gone Madigan” and the CD-DVD of that.

She’s done half-hour specials on Comedy Central, made numerous appearances on all of the major late night talk shows and has branched out to serve as a “correspondent” for “The Dr. Phil Show” and ESPN2. She has done commentary for VH1, CNN, E!, CMT and “TV Guide’s Red Carpet.” She has won the American Comedy and Phyllis Diller awards for “Best Female Comedian.”

She was approached by ABC-TV about doing a daytime talk show “to help fill the void left by cancelling all those soaps” and “was talking to them until they said the words, ‘every day.’ I said, ‘What?’ They said, ‘every day,’ as in like 350 times a year. I said, ‘Then I am not your woman.’ My freedom is worth more.”

Madigan isn’t sure if people want or need comedy more when the economy is bad.

“I do know that during the Depression, the only thing that made money legally was vaudeville. People will always want and need to laugh.”

Madigan said she generally feels at home in cities like Dayton, Detroit, Cleveland, York, Pa., and St. Louis.

“Those are my kind of people. I like to stay around and drink with them afterwards,” she said.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2377 or tmorris@Dayton DailyNews.com.

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