It’s a long road from South Milwaukee to Conan O’Brien and Comedy Central, but Jackie Kashian kept in touch with the town where she grew up. This Saturday marks a special homecoming. Kashian is the headlining attraction at an institution undreamed of when she was coming up, the South Milwaukee Performing Arts Center.
Storytelling came early to her at the family dinner table. “It was almost like open mic,” she says. “Our dad would go around the table and ask how the day was going and you had, maybe, 45 seconds to make it interesting. So I learned to tell a story pretty tight. Whether the story was funny was all bonus, but I learned early on that I had to keep the attention of the audience.” Some of her humor, delivered with high energy, is inspired by family eccentricity.
She began performing to a wider public in 1984 at a Madison club, The Comedy Cellar. “It was below a pool hall called The State Street Infirmary. It was a wretched hive of scum and villainy,” she insists. Kashian did stand-up there every night for eight months until the club burned down. “I got a 1.8 that semester and did open mics in Madison and Milwaukee,” including the Safe House, before graduating in 1988.
Comedy might have been a way of life for Kashian, but would it become a way to make a living? “I always knew I could make a really crummy living—if you’re willing to live in your car and live on Subway sandwiches,” she says. “But I have always been a fan of a steady income. So I had a day job way later than a lot of comics would have. I quit my last (hopefully!) day job in 2003 when I got my stand-up special on Comedy Central. I felt, then, that I better believe in my work and just play by the seat of my pants.
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“I keep writing and I want to keep growing as a performer and writer without being too invested in the outcome,” Kashian continues. “You probably know what I mean. You work hard for a long time and start to have expectations of what the job owes you. When I start to think like that, I tend to try to get out of that mindset as soon as possible. I can’t force anyone to care about what I do, which is very freeing because then I don’t have to care if anyone cares and I get to just create, which is where the joy in the work comes.”
Jackie Kashian performs at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 19 at the South Milwaukee Performing Art Center, 901 15th Ave., South Milwaukee. For tickets, call 414-766-5049 or visit southmilwaukeepac.org.
Theatre Happenings
The AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin (ARCW) and Florentine Opera Company’s Camerata (the company’s LGBTQ-friendly affinity group) have teamed up to present “ARCW Night with the Florentine Opera” on Friday, March 18 at 7:30 p.m. at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts’ Wilson Theater. The evening features Florentine Opera Company’s Milwaukee premiere of Three Decembers, an emotionally charged 90-minute one-act opera about the lives of a Broadway diva and her adult son and daughter. Tickets start at $30, with $20 of each ticket sold going to support ARCW’s Pathway to Wellness program. Tickets can be purchased at florentineopera.org with the code “ARCW” or by calling 414-291-5700 and requesting ARCW seating.
In Tandem Theatre is hosting a three-show benefit run of the concert-version opera Jesus Chris Superstar, featuring Ryan Charles as Jesus, Natalie Ford as Mary Magdalene and Angela Iannone as Pilate, March 18-20 in the sanctuary of Calvary Church, 935 W. Wisconsin Ave. (located above In Tandem Theatre). The money raised will help support In Tandem’s artistic and educational programming. The performance weekend will include unique and exciting raffle packages as well as a cash bar. For tickets, call 414-271-1371 or visit intandemtheatre.org.
All In Productions presents the Milwaukee premiere of Ordinary Days by American composer Adam Gwon. This entirely sung-through show is about four New Yorkers and how their lives are connected and interwoven in beautiful, unexpected ways. See this humorous and poignant production at In Tandem Theatre’s Tenth Street Theatre (628 N. 10th St.), March 25-April 3. For tickets, visit allin-mke.com.
Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s world premiere of Sirens of Song is a one-of-a-kind concert created specifically for the Stackner Cabaret venue featuring powerhouse vocalists Bertilla Baker, Amelia Cormack and Maiesha McQueen singing hits such as “Respect,” “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” “My Boyfriend’s Back” and “I Will Survive.” Sirens of Song runs March 25-May 29 at 108 E. Wells St. For tickets, call 414-224-9490 or visit milwaukeerep.com.
