Heather McMahan is convinced you can learn a lot about society at any Chili’s airport location.
It’s peak people watching and there happens to also be mozzarella sticks, lava cake, margaritas and the salsa trio with chips. For McMahan, it’s the perks of touring around the country and her love of travel. More than that, it feeds McMahan’s love for observing everyday humans who “are funny and ridiculous and unhinged and unfiltered and a mess and wrong and right.”
“Yes, you’re on the road, you’re writing material, you’re performing all the time, you’re honing your craft, but you also have to, like, go sit at a Chili’s sometimes and just have a mozzarella stick and a margarita and be like, what is life?,” McMahan said. “Because you can get wrapped up in your own story and your own s— all the time, you have to go out, and that’s why I travel so much … I like to just go live life [because] you’re you’re never going to have new material if you’re not out there making mistakes.”
McMahan’s Bamboozled tour, coming to the Orpheum Theatre on Nov. 1, is her third national tour and she’s taking on new material that she’s adding, building and moving every single show, and sometimes changing from city to city. The stand-up comic and actor had two comedy specials in recent years, including, “Son I Never Had” on Netflix, where she talked about her journey with in vitro fertilization, or IVF, and “Breadwinner” on Hulu.
The Times caught up with McMahan to talk about her tour, the intersection of comedy and politics, how she releases her emotions on stage and how she thinks about authenticity.
What are you most excited about going into this upcoming set of shows that you have?
I’m having so much fun on this tour. It is my favorite set of material. The Bamboozle tour has just been lights out, out of control fun, and obviously playing some of my favorite cities. I’m playing Dallas, I’m going back to Lexington, Kentucky, where I shot my first special for Netflix. And now I’m coming back to the Orpheum in L.A., which is one of my favorite venues of all time. I’ve just been having a lot of fun. My first comedy special was about the loss of my father and I twisted it in the comedic way. And then the last special was just about the ins and outs of my first year of marriage and this big honeymoon that I had, this big over the top wedding. And this is truly just a hodgepodge of the most vulnerable s— in a super-funny way.
People don’t always want to talk about politics, and you decided to jump in the fray a bit. What’s giving you the confidence to go up there and actually try to make a joke about the space that we are in?
I am not talking about the actual politicians themselves. I am talking about the social circles that we find ourselves in and navigating that, and all of us navigating families and navigating getting crazy phone calls in the middle of the night from your old sorority sisters and that kind of stuff. I really can only talk about it from my point of view and my perspective and also the female perspective, and as a Southern woman I’m very outspoken, and I love to make people laugh. There’s so much humor, because I know that all of the things that are said at my country club are also said in other people’s circles. And it’s like I’m just saying all the things that you might say in your mah-jongg group, but I’m saying it out loud.
McMahan’s material transforms personal struggles — her father’s death, her IVF journey and marriage challenges — into comedy that helps audiences feel less alone in their pain.
(Mike Quinlan Full Stack Photography)
How do you think comedy can actually help people process and make sense of politics and policy?
My whole job is to be observational and then to take the things that make us uncomfortable, or the conversations that may make us feel uneasy, and to talk about it, right? You got to rip the Band-Aid off and have these conversations. I may not be saying the right things all the time, but I’m at least going to be tapping into that little voice in your subconscious that’s like, “I kind of feel that way too.” And then peeling back the layers of the world that we’re in, especially America, it is so insane, like it feels like we’re in an episode of “Veep.” Some genius comedy writer wrote it but then there’s also the scary elements of what is actually going on. And some days I have to go outside, outside of a theater and touch grass and be like, what is actually happening? But my whole job is to say the things that we have all been feeling, or maybe we’re all whispering in our friendship groups, and to break it down on stage for people to digest it and to laugh about it. That’s the human condition. That’s us all getting together and wanting to laugh about the things that are absurd, obscene, uncomfortable, because we’re all going through it together.
How would you describe Southern humor versus, say, Hollywood humor or New Yorker humor or Midwesterner humor?
Southern humor is a little, you know, we always say we don’t gossip in the South, we have prayer requests. We have a really interesting way of making you think about things and you don’t realize that we’ve just said the thing right to your face, but in a real Southern sweet tone. I don’t want to say that we all have such different humor, but I know Southern women can get away with saying a lot of s— to your face that you didn’t even realize that they just said, like New York humor is they may be a lot more brash and say it right to you. Southern humor sometimes you got to sit back and go, did she just insult me? And you’re like, yeah, yeah, she did.
How is your grief informing your comedy right now?
Grief is never ending. It’s always changing. And just when you thought you’ve gotten through one stage, then you’ve looped back around, and you’re back to denial, right? I try and call my dead dad every tax season to be like, “Well, he’ll know if this is a write off.” And then I’m like, oh s—, he’s been buried for 10 years. It informs my comedy, because life is life. Truly, there are days where you’re just trying to keep your head above water, you’re just trying to figure it out, and grief to me hits me in the wildest, weirdest places. I could be at a Costco and I got a rotisserie chicken, and for some reason, the fact that they haven’t changed the price of the hot dog at the Costco concessions. You know, I’m like “My dad and I used to come to Costco and get a flatbed full of like computer equipment for his office” and now here I am eating a rotisserie chicken and $1.50 hot dog, and a Diet Coke and I’m losing my s—. It hits you at the most random times.
When it comes to grief, your marriage and how you’re thinking about your own life, what have you had to learn to release to get to this point?
As a comic, I feel that we have the healthiest way of coping with s— because we immediately, once we feel it, I’m like, I can get up that night and work through that in a comedic way, work through those feelings. I don’t think there’s any feelings that I haven’t released. There’s probably some feelings and thoughts that I should have kept close to the chest, but for me, truly how I’ve healed in anything is getting up and making a joke about it, getting up and talking about it. If I can connect with an audience member who’s also going through the same thing, or has gone through that, like my meet-and-greets after the shows where, you know, men and women come up to me, they’re like, “Hey, I lost my parent,” or “I went through this,” or, “My husband does the same s—,” that’s why we do this. It’s that human connection. So being able to say what I want on stage, release that feeling, I don’t think I’m holding back anything.
Your Hulu special came out last year. Have your ideas on what it means to be a breadwinner changed at all?
No, it hasn’t changed. I have girlfriends who may not be making as much money as their spouses, or vice versa, and everybody is out there hustling and grinding it out and burning the candle at both ends. I have had to find moments this year specifically where I actually started to say no to a few things. And there’s power in saying no. There’s power in slowing down a little bit. There’s power in taking care of yourself. I felt like at the beginning of my career, I had to strike so hard, while the iron was hot that literally I have crippling sciatica down both legs, because I’m hopping on so many airplanes. I’m blessed that I’m a million miler and 360 member of Delta but there are moments where I’m like, I could actually take this weekend off and just take care of myself and take an Epsom salt bath. So I do think there are moments where I’m just like, it’s OK to take care of yourself and it’s OK to say no to things. We don’t always have to be on top. It’s OK to take one for the team and just chill the f— out.
McMahan deliberately overshares on stage, believing comedians heal by bleeding truth and processing life’s messiest moments with unfiltered authenticity.
(Mike Quinlan / Full Stack Photography)
How do you filter yourself when it comes to knowing what to share and knowing what not to share?
I’ll tell you this, my therapist definitely has told me to pull back the reins. I will always share my story and what I am going through. I won’t share stuff about people that I love, or what else is going on in other people’s lives, I’m very protective of that. But my story will always be up for grabs. Of course there are things that I keep close to the chest but I always share after I’ve gone through it. When I was doing IVF multiple times and all those failures, I made a whole special about it, and I also then talked about it online and talked about it on my podcast. I overshare, period. I’m a comic. If you ask an actor, they don’t tell you anything. And then they go to a press tour, and then they say three things about the character and the project they’re working on and then maybe you get some beauty routine tips. Comics are like, I will literally bleed out on stage and tell you my deepest, darkest fears.
How do you define authenticity for yourself?
I have been myself since Day 1. I never had to do any sort of formal training of how to peel back the layers and be me. I was myself out the gate, and, yeah, I did a lot of characters online, that’s how I started. I would put on many wigs and play many different people. But from the jump, it has always been about me. And the joke has always been about me, even like I said, talking about politics. The joke is, how have I f— this up? How have I misinterpreted something? It’s always back on me. I think I am my most vulnerable self when I am performing, when I am being creative and I don’t think I’ve ever held back. I think I hold the most back when I’m interviewing people on the red carpet, because I know I have to be buttoned up, and it’s about them. There are moments where I’m interviewing somebody, and then off camera, we’re having a ridiculous conversation that I wish could be on camera. And I’m like, I really hope that wasn’t online, you know? But I’ve always been me, period.