Jackie Kashian’s Homecoming Date at Laughing Tap

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Photo: Jackie Kashian - Facebook

Jackie Kashian

Jackie Kashian

“There are two tours you can give a guest to any small town,” says South Milwaukee-raised stand-up comic Jackie Kashian of the birthplace that continues to inspire her shtick 35 years into her career in humor.

“There’s the Norman Rockwell 'Here’s the Little league park where I played Little League.' And the opioid crises tour: ‘And across the street from the Little League park is the public housing projects we lived in when I was little.' So, growing up in South Milwaukee, which was just a factory town on Lake Michigan when I was a kid, made me want to get out. But it also holds a great deal of nostalgia. That creates comedy and connection for me every day of my life.”

Kashian, now living in Southern California, will bring her act to a nearly-hometown crowd for 8 p.m. and 10:15 p.m. performances Friday, Dec.17 and 8 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 18 at The Laughing Tap (706B S. Fifth St.). 

She draws many of the best bits heard in her latest audio album and video special, Stay-Kashian, from her South Milwaukee family, especially her father, a gregariously persistent—and flirtatious—window salesman. H doesn’t mind figuring into her shtick. 

“All publicity is good publicity,” she says. “You say that he’s a great salesman and sound like fun. How could he not like that being the impression you get?" Her husband of 15 years also looms prominently in her sets, sometimes quite candidly. He's good with the attention, too. 

Kashian adds, “All material based on family members isn’t meant to do anything but have everyone commiserate with behavior we all witness or experience.”

Frank and transparent as Kashian is in her humor about her own life, she is careful to place herself within the context of other topics she broaches. “My take on racism or homophobia has to be done with the full knowledge of where I sit on that conversation as a straight white woman," she observes. 

Mood Altering Comedy

Whatever the subject of her work, her comedy can be a therapeutic release of life’s pressures for those seeing her. “A good stand-up show, for me, can fix my mood like nothing else,” she says, albeit with a proviso. “Conversely, a bad set cannot be fixed by anything but a good set. A lovely day with friends and family doesn’t usually fix it as well as another stand-up set.”

Although Kashian played many dates via livestreaming during the height of COVID-19, nothing satisfies like a crowd whose faces she and see in person. As she explains, “The excitement and pheromones of humanity creates a different vibe than online shows.” And though she continues to perform for people’s internet-connected screens, she plays to their limitations, “I do more mugging and hand gestures because comedy on a tiny screen needs bigger gestures.” 

Kashian won’t have to exaggerate her facial expressions and gesticulations at her Laughing Tap dates, but she did get some good out of her unplanned pandemic break. “It was really nice being home for 16 months. Turns out I like my husband a lot.” 

Here’s Kashian regaling an audience for NPR’s “Live From Here” with, among other things, recollections of how she discovered what it means to be a friend and a Viking-themed photoshoot in Iceland with her husband: