Kathleen Madigan is bringing nearly 40 years of stand-up experience to the Charline McCombs Empire Theatre this Friday, and she's already thinking about the queso. The veteran comic, now touring behind her Flying Cats & Marching Armadillos Tour, takes the stage at 8 p.m. on September 11 in a city she's played for years, one she says holds a soft spot largely because of its food and its history.
Madigan will perform at the historic venue at 226 N. St. Mary's St., with tickets ranging from $37 to $167, according to the San Antonio Current. The show is one leg of a Texas swing that pairs the San Antonio date with a September 12 performance across I-35 at ACL Live at the Moody Theater in Austin, according to Kathleen Madigan's official site, which noted the tour's initial announcement covered 20 dates nationwide.
San Antonio isn't new territory for Madigan. The paper reports she frequently headlined the Rivercenter Comedy Club earlier in her career, and she's called San Antonio a city she really loves. Per the same account, she keeps her ticket prices reasonably low because she wants the experience of attending her show to feel easy — no hassle, just laughs.
A Comic Who Considers Herself a History Freak
Madigan describes herself as a history freak, and San Antonio gives her plenty to chew on. The Current reports she makes a pilgrimage to the Alamo every time she's in town, and that her interest overlaps with musician Phil Collins, who grew up obsessed with Davy Crockett and later donated items now displayed at the Alamo Visitor Center.
Those donated items — more than 400 Texas Revolution artifacts — now live in the Alamo Collections Center, a two-story, 24,000-square-foot facility that opened to the public on the Alamo grounds in March 2023, according to KENS 5. The station noted it was the first new building constructed on Alamo grounds in 70 years.
The venue hosting Madigan's own show has its own layered past. Built in 1914 in a European palazzo design by St. Louis firm Mauran, Russell & Crowell, the 857-seat Empire Theatre has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1999, according to the Majestic Empire Foundation. The theater was built on the former site of Rische's Opera House.
The building sat vacant for nearly 25 years after a severe 1921 flood before the Las Casas Foundation restored it for $5.5 million, reopening in April 1998 and renaming it after philanthropist Charline McCombs following her $1 million gift, according to the San Antonio Report. That restoration was coordinated alongside the neighboring Majestic Theatre project.
From Print Reporter to Stage Veteran
Before comedy, Madigan worked as a print reporter. She earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in 1988 and worked for St. Louis-area Suburban Journals before pursuing stand-up full-time, per Missouri Legends. She started performing at open-mic nights in St. Louis while still working in print media, a background that helps explain the topical bent of her material.
That path took off fast. She was named Funniest Female Stand-Up Comic at the American Comedy Awards in 1996, according to AllMusic, an honor that helped move her from club act to theater performer early in a career that has now produced six hour-long stand-up specials. The Current reports she reached the semifinals of Last Comic Standing Season 2, returned for a best-of Season 3, and was, by the show's own history, the only comic that no other contestant ever challenged to a head-to-head face-off. She's also appeared on Leno, Letterman, Conan and Hollywood Squares, and wrote material for Garry Shandling's Emmy-hosting gigs.
Her fans, known as termites — a nickname inspired by fellow comic Ron White, whom she calls Mr. Texas — have followed her through six specials and a touring schedule that has run as many as 250 nights in some years, per the Current's reporting. She's also performed for U.S. military personnel overseas on USO holiday tours, including December 2010 shows across bases in Iraq and Afghanistan alongside Lewis Black, a tour led by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to DVIDS.
New Special, Same Nashville Tex-Mex Problem
Madigan's most recent hour, The Family Thread, premiered on Prime Video on November 21, 2025, featuring routines about gambling as math education, Midwest pioneers, her four cats and her aging parents, according to a release cited by Amazon MGM Studios. The special was executive produced by Madigan alongside John Irwin and Jodi Urness, and it landed on the New York Times' list of five specials to get viewers through the holidays last December, the Current noted.
It followed her 2016 Netflix special Bothering Jesus, which became the highest-selling and most-played stand-up comedy album across digital streaming services since 2015, per the same Amazon MGM Studios release. Her earlier special Hunting Bigfoot won Interrobang's Comedy Special of the Year in 2023, according to the Current.
Between tours, Madigan hosts a weekly podcast, Madigan's Pubcast, created during the 2020 pandemic pause in live touring. It has accumulated more than 10 million streams across 200-plus episodes, according to Amazon MGM Studios, and the Current reports it explores snacks, history, pop culture and sports. Madigan compares her live act to the movie Arthur, telling the Current she wants audiences to forget everything and just laugh for an hour and a half.
These days Madigan lives in Nashville, where, she told the Current, good Tex-Mex is nearly impossible to find — which may explain why a San Antonio stop always comes with a food agenda. Doors for Friday's show open ahead of the 8 p.m. set at the Empire Theatre, which can be reached at 210-226-5700 for ticketing questions.
