When Margaret Cho emerged in the early 1990s as a major new voice in comedy and a stand-up headliner, fans were ignited by her brutal honesty, taboo-breaking storytelling, and unapologetic activism. After nearly four decades in the business, she’s as outspoken as ever.
Today, she’s still touring, still evolving, and still deeply engaged with the state of both comedy and the country. Her latest tour, Choligarchy — which she describes as “bringing me back to my roots as a political comedian” — kicks off at Provincetown Town Hall with two shows this weekend.
While Cho has always been deeply connected to her fans, these days that connection is stronger than it’s ever been. “It’s different now because everyone’s so connected on Instagram, TikTok, and social media,” she says. “I talk to people much more than I ever did. In the ’90s, there was this divide — you never really talked to people except at shows. But now I can talk to people all the time, which I love.”
Social media engagement has another benefit, says Cho: fans have their favorite jokes and often recite them to her word-for-word, which she finds surprisingly helpful. “They remind me of jokes I have no recollection of,” she says. “They’ll walk me through it, and I’ll go, ‘Oh, right!’ It’s great because it jogs my memory.”
There’s much to remember. Cho, 56, began doing stand-up while she was still in her teens in her hometown of San Francisco. Her career caught fire with local audiences and eventually led to her winning a contest in which the prize was opening for Jerry Seinfeld. After moving to Los Angeles, she hit the road to perform on campuses, where her left-leaning politics and anti-establishment persona found receptive audiences and made her one of the most successful acts on the college circuit for years.
In the early 1990s, Cho created a weekly live show with her friend Kathy Griffin called Hot Cup of Talk. Along with launching Griffin’s own stand-up career, the show featured fellow comedians Janeane Garofalo and Julia Sweeney and occasional guests. What set it apart from other stand-up shows were a few simple rules regarding the material: everything they said had to be true, it had to be the first time it was spoken on stage, and a timer next to the mic cut the performers off at eight minutes. It became the buzziest show in town and had a lasting influence on the art of stand-up comedy.
“That era ushered in the idea that you could just tell stories instead of doing setup-punchline-club-style comedy,” says Cho. “You could share your opinion about something you believed in. It laid the groundwork for ‘alternative’ comedy, which became very important — and now, honestly, all comedy is that.”
In 1994, Cho made cultural history when she starred in ABC’s All-American Girl, the first sitcom to feature an Asian-American family and lead character. Sadly, the executives who cast Cho based on her stand-up didn’t seem to know much else about her: she was told to lose weight, tone down her personality, and make the show “more relatable” to white audiences. It was canceled after one season.
The cancellation sent Cho into a mental and physical spiral that eventually landed her in the hospital with kidney failure. But by 1999, she was back on top with an Off-Broadway one-woman show titled I’m the One That I Want, which went on to tour extensively before also becoming a book and feature film.
Cho was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2012 for her recurring role on NBC’s 30 Rock playing North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il. It was a bold impersonation of a notoriously thin-skinned dictator — something that’s even more relevant, when freedom of speech is under attack by our own thin-skinned leaders.
Those threats have only sharpened Cho’s determination to fight the good fight through art. “I’ve always been political, always against the establishment,” she says. “I used to go after the Bush administration, but I realize now that they weren’t that bad. Now, we have something real to fight against. Maybe we’re made for these times. That’s the only way I can look at it. I’m trying to stay optimistic, even though it’s scary.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen with free speech,” she continues. “I want to get this work out now. We’re not sure how long we’ll be able to do this. Trump is attacking people like Rosie O’Donnell, who’s not even here. What does that mean for the rest of us? If I’m optimistic, this could usher in a progressive era. The pendulum has to swing the other way — unless they rig it to stop, which is also possible.”
Despite all the threats she sees in the current political and cultural landscape, Cho says she’s excited by the next generation of comics: the queer, trans, and Asian performers she calls “my babies.” These new voices, she says, are reshaping comedy and expanding its political possibilities. She also welcomes comics who rise through TikTok. “All that matters is getting people into the venue,” she says.
Several days after our interview, CBS announced that it was cancelling Stephen Colbert’s Late Night show, apparently caving to political pressure as the network attempted to gain government support for a planned merger between Paramount Global (CBS’s parent company) and Skydance Media. “It’s terrifying that Trump is trying to silence comedians,” says Cho. “But in this whole thing with Colbert, what will really upset him is the contrast between how beloved Colbert is compared to how many absolutely despise him.”
The trepidation over the current state of affairs can have a chilling effect on audiences. But Cho has mastered the art of adapting. “You pivot — either to new stuff or something established,” she says. “Every crowd is different. Things shift, but what’s great is that everyone’s so informed now. You can talk about current events and people get it instantly. We’re all glued to our phones. That shared knowledge makes us powerful.”
Live and Livid
The event: Margaret Cho in Choligarchy
The time: Friday, Aug. 1 and Saturday, Aug. 2, 7:30 p.m.
The place: Provincetown Town Hall, 260 Commercial St.
The cost: $45-$80 at payomet.org
