Kathleen Madigan, the self-styled ‘road comic,’ is making her way to CT

Kathleen Madigan is in a car driving from Oklahoma to Texas as she conducts her interview. A self-styled “road comic,” Madigan does around 250 shows a year and also makes time for TV comedy specials and appearances on late-night shows. This Friday, she will return to Foxwoods’ Great Cedar Showroom .

During the talk, Madigan’s phone cuts out, the moment eerily reminiscent of a routine from one of her comedy specials about young people who don’t care about cellphone service providers until they get lost in the woods. Madigan finds humor in everyday mishaps, and she knows what sort of situations her audience can relate to because she’s played to audiences throughout the country.

As Madigan made her way across the country, she talked to the Hartford Courant about how natural this lifestyle has become for her, her college goal to become a journalist and why she never wants to live in New York City or L.A.

What on earth made you give up journalism for this career?

I didn’t have the passion for it. I knew that in college. They were like, “What story do you want to do? Toxic waste dumping in Southern Illinois? There’s a cable company fight in downtown St. Louis. Or how about the salad bars that grocery stores are putting in?” I was like, “I’m gonna go with the salad bar!” My friend ended up solving a murder and being on “60 Minutes,” but I just didn’t have that in me.

You travel so much that it seems you don’t really need a house, but you have one that’s well outside New York or L.A. Is it a getaway for you?

I have a place in Nashville and I have a place in the Ozarks in Missouri. I would rather be in Missouri all the time but it’s too far away from an airport. I just like the road. I’m in a car right now, going from Oklahoma City to Dallas. It’s just a nice three-hour drive. I don’t want to be on a TV show or in a movie. I lived in L.A. I put in my time. I did what I needed to do, but I don’t really like L.A. I like New York to visit, but I don’t want to live there. No way, no way. Nashville’s awesome. It seems like where I’m from, but it’s not where I’m from. Tennessee’s very much like Missouri. I want to go fishing and golfing, a lot of outdoor stuff.

You’ve played Connecticut a zillion times, haven’t you?

Yes, a zillion times, but I never really know where I am. If you told me I was in New Hampshire I’d believe you. There are too many states up there in that corner and they divided them so tiny. It’s like they just got lazy. They started out on the East Coast saying “OK, Delaware’s only getting eight miles of beach and then we’re going to do this. …” And when they got further west they were like “Whatever, the whole thing can just be called Texas.” I truly don’t know where I’m at most of the time I’m on the East Coast.

You’ve played both the casinos in Connecticut and we also have some nice old theaters you’ve played. We have comedy clubs too but you don’t do those much anymore, do you?

I’ll go down to the club for fun but, yeah, I don’t work them anymore. I put in 12, 15 years of that. They were fun while it lasted but eventually, I just want to keep moving on. I can’t do “Groundhog Day” for an entire lifetime. Some people do it, that’s fine, but I was more “Let’s keep moving onward and upward here.” Not that I would be capable of it right now, but I don’t have the goal to get to an arena. That’s too big. Comedy to me should be somehow contained. Once you go over 5,000 seats, unless you’re outside, I just think it’s not intimate at all anymore. But a lot of people don’t mind.

Are East Coast audiences different than other parts of the country? Is that what’s interesting about the traveling for you, the variety of crowds you’re playing to?

I like to see what’s going on in the whole country. I would say the East Coast audiences are more energetic. I don’t know how you guys have the energy. I think of watching “Monday Night Football” or a World Series game and I think, “Those people on the East Coast, it’s midnight now, and they have to get up at the same time we do to go to work.” You can feed off that energy. When I’m in New York City I get way more done in a day than I would if I wasn’t. You feel it in the crowds.

You’ve done political material in the past. How are you dealing with the election?

I like the overview of it, but I don’t like the minutiae of it because it changes so quickly. When people always say “Oh, Trump, you probably get a lot of material!” I mean, you would have to get a full-time staff because he says something every day. So it’s more of an overview of “What are we doing here?” Like, why aren’t there age limits?  If he were to win, he’ll be 82 when he’s done. No, no, we’ve got to put a cap on this at like 75. So I’ll talk about it but I won’t get bogged down in the specifics because they change too quickly and it will seem outdated a week from now. And just personally, I’m kind of tired of it. If I feel that way then I think other people probably do. I think there are a lot of people who just wish this was over because it just doesn’t seem to end.

Your last special was about a year ago, so is this all-new material you’re doing now?

Probably 80%, yeah. I always keep 20% of the old-school stuff that I know people want to hear, but there’s a lot of new stuff. I’m going to do another special in the spring. We’re going to film it at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee. I filmed one there before, and I loved it.

Have you done much acting? Do you like it?

No. It depends on what kind of acting it is. Lewis Black is a close friend of mine. Lewis has done sitcoms. I’ve gone to his sitcom tapings and I was so bored I drank a whole bottle of wine. I memorized the whole script, I memorized his parts, other people’s parts… We were there for eight hours! A sitcom taping, for me there’s nothing more torturous. Then I think what does it take to make a “Braveheart”?! I can’t even imagine having the patience for it. It’s just too slow.

So doing comedy this way is really how you most want to do it?

I saw my slot and I’m not getting out of it. It’s a lot of fun if you have the right attitude, but you’ve got to enjoy what I call “organized chaos.” My sister would not be comfortable with any of this at all. She likes super organization, predictability, that’s her idea of happy. Now, I don’t really know what’s going to happen today. I don’t have any idea, but I know I need to be in Texas. So there is an overall umbrella of what I need to do. I’ve got my friends and we could go do anything. There could be a snake farm by the side of the road here that I might want to go to. I like that, but other people would die if they had to be gone 45 weeks a year.

Kathleen Madigan performs Friday at 8 p.m. at Great Cedar Showroom, Foxwoods Resort Casino, 350 Trolley Line Blvd., Mashantucket. $56.50-$285.55. foxwoods.com .