In English, Madrigal is doing just fine

Imagine Al Madrigal's surprise when he learned he was a Mexican comic. The San Francisco-based Madrigal, last in town for the Just For Laughs festival in June, has four stand-up appearances at the Lakeshore Theater this weekend. His new album is "Half Breed," a title that riffs on his confusing background. "I'm half Mexican, half Sicilian, and I'm married to a half-Greek, half-Korean chick," he says in a recent phone interview. He got his start doing stand-up in big, cosmopolitan cities such as San Francisco and Chicago. "I didn't even know I was a Latino comedian," he says.

He remembers his first trip to Los Angeles was for an HBO tryout for the 2004 Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colo. A fellow comic was on Friday evening and was lavished with the luxury HBO treatment, free stuff, he says; Madrigal wondered why he was given a late-night Saturday slot.

"I show up, and they hand me a tin of Red Hots. I kid you not. It turns out I'm part of the lineup for HBO Latino. This guy comes up to me and says 'I'm going to interview you in Spanish.' And I'm like, 'Well, you can try,'" Madrigal says. "I speak this terrible Spanglish." Still in shock after his gig, he called up his friend, comedian Jimmy Dore, and told him the news: "Jimmy, I'm a Mexican comedian!"

Madrigal went on to win the jury award of the Aspen festival. Now 38, he only started doing professional comedy in 1998. He was the star of a 2005 Comedy Central television special and was cast as a building attendant named Jesus (pronounced "Jee-sus") in the short-lived 2008 CBS series "Welcome to the Captain." He appeared on "The Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien" earlier this month (videos on YouTube).

Madrigal said he still gets asked to do fests and performances based on the color of his skin. But that pigeonhole style of comedy doesn't interest him. That's all about Mexican people, white people -- they're so different. His material is more storytelling, based on his life. "I'm not much for setup ... punch line," he says. "I talk about my kids. I talk about my wife."

As for his appearances at Lakeshore, Madrigal says he's still in the comedy-club phase of his career. Which means he's making the effort. "If you're playing the clubs, you're either on your way up or your way down," he says. The hottest names are instead playing stadiums and theaters.

Which is why, he advises, even if you don't come out to see his act, don't go to a former big name you recognize. Take a chance on a no-name just starting out. "Those older guys have already peaked; you're going to pay extra money to see them, and you're going to wonder why you did."

— Doug George, Tribune reporter, July 31, 2009

He's starting over -- again Experience is a relative thing, especially in terms of stand-up comedy. Some would say that Al Madrigal, who comes to the Comedy Connection tonight and tomorrow, is an established comic, having just passed his 10-year anniversary in the business. He's already been in three sitcoms, including the recently canceled "Welcome to the Captain" and the upcoming "Project Gary." He's toured with Dave Chappelle and Mitch Hedberg.

With all of that on his resume, why would he consider himself a "baby headliner?"

"I think Jay Leno said it's the same thing as becoming an attorney - seven years to get your law degree and then another seven years to actually become a good attorney," he says. "How long are you new for?"

Madrigal has been "new" for 10 years. He was new in 2002, when he played the "New Faces" showcase in the Just for Laughs Festival in Montreal. He was new again in 2004, when he won a jury award for best stand-up comedian at the US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen. He was probably new to most audiences when he costarred with Jeffrey Tambor and Raquel Welch in "Welcome to the Captain," and he's ready to be discovered yet again when he costars with Jay Mohr in "Project Gary" this fall.

Still, Madrigal wouldn't trade his current struggles for his last gig, working for his parents' human resources business, for which he claims to have fired more than 1,500 people.

"I don't think I'll ever be disappointed because I worked a regular job," he says. "I work, what, two hours a night, tops? I've got a bunch of scripts I'm working on, I get free bar, I'm staying most likely at a decent hotel. This is one of the best gigs in the world."

Madrigal got into stand-up a bit late, finally giving in to his lifelong itch to try comedy at age 27.

"I thought if I made it to 30, and I hadn't tried it yet, I'd have a midlife crisis, and I'd regret it for the rest of my life," he says, remembering his plan. "I'm going to try it five times, and if I don't get laughs these first five times, at least I'll be able to say I tried. And then five times became, all right, I'll try this for a year."

Things moved quickly at first for Madrigal. He got to play some of the best clubs in his native San Francisco, like Cobb's and the Punch Line. And if the fact that he was a comedy fan before he was a comic left him a little star-struck by comedians he met, he also thinks his late start helped him.

"I got to build up all of this perspective that I don't think a lot of people have when they're young and just truly appreciate who I was working amongst," he says. "It sort of translated in my act. I have a lot to talk about."

Madrigal has worked to ensure his act has the widest appeal possible, playing alternative and mainstream venues, something he says follows the tradition of his fellow San Francisco comedians.

"I don't do any specific type of room," he says. "I feel like the one thing the truly great San Francisco comics have done is been able to do a variety of gigs. I don't think you're funny unless you're funny in front of a mainstream audience."

That mainstream breakthrough may not be far off. Madrigal is convinced that his TV appearances and his work in the clubs are adding up.

"I'm on my way," he says. "People are starting to come out to the clubs. So it's all starting to build, and I anticipate that great things will happen.

— Nick A. Zaino III, Globe Correspondent, June 27, 2008

Comedian Al Madrigal finds plenty to smile about these days

Though other performers carefully brand themselves to appeal to just the right demographic, stand-up comedian Al Madrigal has found success by simply being himself. Madrigal is half Mexican American and half Anglo American, and when he takes the stage Tuesday at Cap City Comedy Club for a five-night run, plenty of Texans will identify with his cultural fish-out-of-water jokes.

But like many second-generation Americans, Madrigal's game is about more than just La Raza. He mostly tells real-life, hilarious stories that are taken from his childhood, fatherhood and experiences in between and sound more like the Sedaris siblings than George Lopez. Take this story from his childhood, for example, which is posted as an audio clip on his MySpace page. (He confirmed it's all true.) Madrigal's father wanted his children to embrace their Anglo heritage, because he thought it would help make them more successful Americans. So, the Mexican immigrant sent his oldest son to French school, where the Anglo neighbor kids went, and where Madrigal wore a school uniform he said made him look like "the Cracker Jack guy." "You grow up real quick, a half-Mexican in a sailor suit," he said. And in San Francisco, where he grew up, boys in pinafores attract a different kind of attention.

"I was hot," Madrigal said, describing himself riding cable cars to school. Stand-up is his favorite comedy medium, and it's apparent onstage, as Madrigal delivers his stand-up comfortably, with a conversational, almost lyrical style. "Everybody thinks I'm baked," Madrigal said from Los Angeles, "because I walk around with a big grin on my face all the time, but I'm just so happy not to have to work a day job." He admires comedians such as Jerry Seinfeld and Dave Chappelle, who find success in film or TV but still continue to take on the stand-up challenge. Not that he's above doing TV.

In fact, Madrigal lives in Los Angeles and is anticipating his Feb. 4 premiere on CBS in the new comedy series "Welcome to the Captain," which co-stars Chris Klein, Jeffrey Tambor and Raquel Welch. Though Madrigal is touring now, the "Captain" set is still built in Hollywood, optimistically anticipating the return of union writers. The writers' strike began before the production wrapped for the season, and two episodes still need to be filmed. Madrigal said he thinks many productions will settle with their writers independently, as David Letterman's Worldwide Pants production company did with its writers. To settle the strike, all major networks and producers must agree to the terms, and networks with strong reality shows, such as Fox's "American Idol," are in no rush to settle.

So until "Captain" writers settle, Madrigal will continue to tour and develop his stand-up career. He's looking forward to his show at Cap City for sentimental reasons, because the club gave him his first headliner gig outside his hometown of San Francisco, back in 2003. "The owners at Cap City gave me a shot well before anybody else," he said. "I love the comedy scene in Austin and have lots of comic friends there. I'm a big fan of the Latino Comedy Project, and hopefully I can convince them to come do some guest spots with me."

— Heather Anderson, Special to the American-Statesman, January 19, 2008

San Francisco native Al Madrigal is more than just Another Latino Comic

Al Madrigal has a Spanish last name and has performed at his share of Latino comedy jams across the country. But he doesn't call himself a Latino comic.

"I don't do Latino stand-up, where I talk about Mexicans vs. white people," Madrigal says. "That's been done. I'd say I'm a dark-complected comic who just happens to have a Hispanic last name." After making his way from the Bay Area comedy club circuit to Hollywood in the past six years, the 33-year-old San Francisco native returns home this week, headlining at the Crow's Nest in Santa Cruz on Sunday and the Punch Line in San Francisco on Tuesday through Thursday.

Madrigal performs stand-up and sketch comedy, and while he shies away from what he calls "typical one-liner" ethnic humor, he jokes about race to some extent because it's part of his personal story. "I'm half-Sicilian, half-Mexican, I went to French school as a kid, and I don't speak Spanish," Madrigal says. "Latinos don't really claim me, and neither do the Sicilians. It's the plight of the half-breed. That's where part of my humor comes from." He and his half-Greek, half-Korean wife also have a 2-year-old son, Lorenzo. "He's a quarter this and a quarter that," he says, laughing. "Times are really changing."

Madrigal got noticed by TV studio executives after winning the jury award for best stand-up performer at the Aspen Comedy Festival in March. Shortly thereafter, he was cast in the David Schwimmer-directed NBC pilot "Home and Hardware," which was later dropped from the network's lineup.

He's currently awaiting word on the fate of the Fox comedy "The Ortegas," a sitcom-improv hybrid based on the International Emmy-winning BBC comedy "The Kumars at No. 42," he's also prepping for his own "Comedy Central Presents" special which will be shown in the fall.

From a young age, Madrigal knew comedy was his calling. He grew up in San Francisco's Inner Sunset district where popular comedians -- the Meehan Brothers, Mike Pritchard and Margaret Cho -- lived only blocks away.

But it took Madrigal years to build up his courage and act on his dream. "I was always a shy kid and didn't talk much," he says. After graduating from the University of San Francisco and working for 10 years at his family's human resources business, he finally decided to hit the open mikes. "I went from complete financial security at a job where I fired people to sleeping in a scummy condo owned by comedy club owners in San Antonio."

But Madrigal says the journey, which has been relatively short compared with the efforts of many other struggling comics, has been well worth it. "I'm not sure what'll happen with 'The Ortegas,' but even if I walk away and nothing happens, it's still a great experience," Madrigal says. "I got into it all to do my stand-up. The TV shows happened to come as a great bonus."

— Nerissa Pacio, Mercury News, July 29, 2004