Heather McDonald is no slouch. She’s a writer, a comedian, an actress, a best-selling author and – oh yeah, a mother of three. Most recognized for her roles on Chelsea Lately and After Lately, Heather has taken her talents on the road in the form of an amazing stand-up show.
Performing at Laugh Boston beginning Thursday, March 19th for three nights, Heather draws a lot of her material from her every day life, including her barefaced honest view of being a mom and being married for 12 years. “I share every aspect of my life. I have no qualms about being brutally honest about how hard it is to be a mother. I can admit that ometimes marriage is a struggle.” Her spot on observations will make you laugh out loud with recognition.
Heather grew up the youngest of five in a large Irish Catholic family in San Fernando Valley, CA. Instinctually, Heather was the loudest and the funniest. “I knew if I wanted to get attention, I needed to be funny.” In high school, one teacher told Heather she was crazy to go to college that she should go right into comedy thanks to her raw and natural talent. But it wasn’t Heather’s plan. “I grew up in San Fernando Valley, so close to Hollywood. So I was sort of jaded about the whole idea of setting out to become famous.” She set out to become a successful “business person” and attended USC. It wasn’t until she got fired from her first job out of college – “I was so horrible at it. It was as an assistant-buyer for Robinson-May and it was a disaster.” – that she began to let the idea of pursuing comedy as a career settle in. And thank God she did. She enrolled in the world-famous Groundlings improvisational and sketch comedy school and honed her craft. She got herself an agent and began booking jobs.
Twenty years after her failed corporate attempt, Heather has many successes including:
- Writing for Keenan Ivory Wayans’ late night talk show – as well as collaborating and writing for the Wayans’ Brothers film – White Chicks and Dance Flick.
- Writing and producing stories for Chelsea Lately
- Numerous roundtable discussions on Chelsea Lately
- Starred in the behind the scenes “mockumentary” series about the cast and crew of Chelsea Lately – appropriately called- After Lately.
- Contributed a chapter to the NY Times #1 bestselling book Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me.
- Her writing has also been featured in Redbook Magazine, Reader’s Digest, The Hollywood Reporter and she has contributed to New York Magazine’s Vulture.
- Wrote two best-selling books, You’ll Never Blue Ball in this Town Again and My Inappropriate Life: Some Material Not Suitable for Small Children, Nuns, or Mature Adults.
- Featured performer on ‘The Tonight Show with Jay Leno’ and has been a guest star on the ‘Frasier,’ ‘Malcolm in the Middle,’ ‘Reno 911? and Nickelodeon’s ‘Drake and Josh.’
- Wrote and performed in her own Showtime special “I Don’t Mean to Brag.”
Heather lives with her husband Peter and their three children in San Fernando Valley – right next door to her parents – “just in case they round out of milk, Chardonnay or need one of her dad’s Vicodin.”
For tickets to Heather’s show – you can visit http://laughboston.com/event.cfm?id=363825&cart To receive $10 off a ticket to Heather’s Thursday show at 8pm (only), enter the code: HeatherCIS at checkout! Enjoy!
Heather has been writing for Caught In Southie since pretty much the beginning and for that we apologize. She can often be found on her couch with a log of raw cookie dough. Her biggest fear is being on an episode of Dateline and her wildest dream is being a guest judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race. Feel free to let her know if there’s something you think she should write about, unless it’s stupid.
