After selling a million tickets during her residency at the Venetian casino in Las Vegas over the past 10 years, veteran comic Rita Rudner has taken to the road for a rare Chicago-area appearance.
The previously familiar presence in area comedy clubs (before her success as an actress, screenwriter and best-selling author), will co-headline with comic Louie Anderson April 25 at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie.
We caught up with Rudner for a quick chat about her career, female empowerment and the inability of her thumbs to keep up with technological change.
Q: You began your career as a Broadway dancer. How did you wind up becoming a comedian?
A: I had been a dancer my whole life, until I was around 27, when I noticed there weren’t many female comedians — and I wondered why that was. So I tried it and I loved it. And, fortunately, I still love it.
I suppose it also had something to do with realizing that dancing wasn’t something I could do forever. I thought comedy would last a much longer time.
Q: Why do you think there weren’t as many female comics when you were getting started?
A: There weren’t as many female anythings. Female doctors, female lawyers. There’s still no female president. Women aren’t accepted in positions of power as well as men. And comedy is a position of power.
Q: Power?
A: Sure. You’re manipulating people’s feelings. You stand up there with the microphone and you get to be the leader.
Q: You’re a fixture now in Las Vegas. How unusual is it for you to go on the road?
A: I don’t go on the road too often, unless I can get two or three dates together. I do it a bit more now because my daughter is older and she likes her friends much better than she likes me. (Laughs.) It’s not as crucial these days that I stay at home.
But I like to change my routine and do things that are different. Also, I find airplanes relaxing because nobody asks me to make them dinner or drive them to their friend’s house. I get to read books and things — it’s a little time of my own.
Q: What’s most on your mind these days? What are you talking about on stage?
A: I always talk about things that are going on in my life. Getting older, being a mother, being married 26 years — that sort of thing. Also the way the world is changing. That’s a never-ending source of material. Like how much more accomplished thumbs have to be these days, than they were in my time. (Laughs.) When I was growing up, thumbs were just another finger. But now they’re life and death. And my thumbs can’t move at the speed of light like my daughter’s.
Q: Are you working on anything new?
A: For the first time in my life, I’m going to do a play. A really funny, two-person play called “Act Three” — about a couple in the third act of their lives. The producer asked me to do it in London, but I couldn’t be away for months. There’s a little venue near my house in California, though, and I offered to try it out there. And I’m really excited about it. That’s my next big dive into the deep.
Rita Rudner
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8 p.m. April 25
North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie Blvd., Skokie
Tickets are $38, $50 and $56
(847) 673-6300; http://www.northshorecenter.org