Photo courtesy of South Milwaukee Performing Arts Center
Jackie Kashian
Jackie Kashian
She’s been a guest on Conan O’Brien and has been seen on HBO, Netflix and Comedy Central. Her comedy albums have reached number one on Amazon and number three on Billboard. She’s a podcaster (“The Dork Forest”) and a published writer as a contributor to The Comedy Film Nerds Guide to Movies. Jackie Kashian came a long way from modest roots in South Milwaukee, and she’ll be back in her hometown for a March 6 show at the South Milwaukee Performing Arts Center.
Becoming a comedian was not on her mind while growing up. “I wanted to act—I think. I certainly played a lot of ‘what if Fonzie was on the starship Enterprise’ and acted out all the parts,” she recalls. “I vaguely remember answering that I wanted to be a lawyer or teacher or forest ranger when asked. I went to UW-Madison and there was a comedy club and we went to it, and I went to open mic three weeks after seeing the show and I was hooked! I don’t know how to explain but it felt like I’d been looking for standup forever.”
Specifically, she recalls a night in 1984 when she went to a Madison comedy club, got drunk and heckled the comic. “And he couldn’t shut me up and, sadly, for the rest of the audience, I wasn’t kicked out; the club manager just came over and said ‘open mic is on Sundays. Now will you shut up? And I did. The comic I heckled? Sam Kinison.”
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Comedy Road Warrior
Kashian performed around Madison before moving to Minneapolis (a “stand-up encouraging” town, she says). Based now in Los Angeles, she became a comedy road warrior logging up 45 weeks a year on tour before the pandemic. “When we were all in lock-down I was home for the first time in my life for 16 months,” she says. “Since then, I’m back to 40ish weeks a year. My husband comes with me when he can. Also, I try to book towns where he has a game convention [he’s a board game designer] so we travel together sometimes! And I work Thursday-Saturday usually, so I’m home three or four days a week. It is a lot of travel, but I love it so much.”
Some people might say: What’s so funny about today’s world? Can comedy help us—and our society—to get through difficult times?
“Comedy right now …” she pauses. “It’s crazy out in the world and there’s two kinds of comedy I like seeing now. Very open about the things we’re all living through (socio-politically)—mostly to relive the pressure and to make people know they aren’t alone or crazy. The other one is just normal driving, family, food and relationship material. Which is just the kind of fun comedy that you just keep writing no matter what the situation.
Image courtesy of South Milwaukee performing Arts Center
Funny Women - logo
At the South Milwaukee PAC, Kashian will perform with Carol Montgomery, Leighann Lord and Tammy Pescatelli in a show called “Funny Women of a Certain Age.” “Carol Montgomery puts special themed shows together where she gets three established headliners and we do the show together! Theres so much experience and strong hilarious writing in the comics she picks—it’s going to be a heck of a show and we’re all doing our favorite, strongest bits,” Kashian promises.
The South Milwaukee Performing Arts Center is located at 901 15th Avenue, South Milwaukee. For tickets, call (414) 766-5049 or visit https://www.southmilwaukeepac.org/
