Felicia Madison has reached the age where, as she jokes, nobody asks her for a “fun fact” anymore.

Well, that’s probably their loss.

Because the woman standing onstage in New York has already lived several lives worth talking about. She received her B.A. in Biological Basis of Behavior and a Minor in Marketing from the University of Pennsylvania. She got married, had kids, and completed all those things she was “supposed” to do.

And after all this, she found comedy.

Not at 22. Not how she’d envisioned it. It was in March 2015 when Madison took her first step toward professional comedy and realized the very thing she’d been looking for was waiting for her in the place she least expected.

Today, she is a comedian, producer, teacher, and the Creative Director of West Side Comedy Club, where she performs, teaches comedy, develops talent, and helps create opportunities for other comedians.

Her unconventional path has become her material, her perspective, and, increasingly, her message: there is no expiration date on discovering what you love.

The Life Before the Laughs

Madison says her journey into comedy was “anything but traditional.”

After marriage and raising children, she wanted something that belonged to her.

“I was looking for a creative outlet and a way to rediscover a part of myself outside of being a wife and mother,” she says.

Her father had already shown her what reinvention could look like. He didn’t graduate from high school, served in the Navy, and worked incredibly hard to build a life for himself and his family. He was also funny, a real jokester, and later in life found a passion of his own.

Watching him taught Madison that there is no expiration date on discovering what excites you.

Comedy became that for her.

Finding the Funny in Getting Older

Madison’s comedy comes from the life she knows: marriage, motherhood, aging, relationships, menopause, empty nesting, and figuring out what comes next.

The more specific and honest she became, the more universal the material became.

“I don’t want to tell people how to age gracefully; I want to laugh about how ridiculous the whole thing can be,” she says.

That idea runs through Queenager, her newest project, which takes on this stage of life with the same honesty that has shaped her career.

Madison will perform Queenager at the New York Comedy Festival on November 12 at West Side Comedy Club, while also working to expand the project into a larger tour.

For her, the subject is bigger than one show.

“There’s a huge audience of people in their 50s, 60s and beyond who want to see themselves represented as more than someone’s mother, grandmother, or the older neighbor,” she says.

They’re still working, dating, having sex, reinventing themselves and making mistakes.

“Older doesn’t mean less interesting, and it definitely doesn’t mean less funny.”

Making Her Own New Opportunities

Madison knows what it feels like to enter an industry that often looks for the next young, hot thing.

“One of my biggest challenges has been getting people in the industry to take a chance on someone who started later in life,” she says.

But starting later also gave her something invaluable: decades of life experience to write about, a clearer sense of who she is and the grit to keep going when traditional doors don’t open.

That same determination now shapes her work behind the scenes.

At West Side Comedy Club and through its comedy school, Madison helps emerging comedians find their voices and get more stage experience. She has learned that she loves creating opportunities for other comedians almost as much as she loves being onstage herself.

The Work Is Still Ahead

The idea she returns to the most is simple: “Stay on your own mat.”

Madison has learned not to measure her career against who got the opportunity, who has more followers, or who seems further along.

“Concentrate on your own work, keep getting better, and keep moving forward.”

Her advice to aspiring comedians is equally direct: get onstage, write constantly, don’t be afraid to bomb, find people to work with and, above all, be yourself.

“You’re the only person who can be that.”

Madison has already released Better Than Sex, performed alongside Jessica Kirson, Rachel Feinstein, Zarna Garg, T.J. Miller and Jordan Carlos, and continues developing television projects.

But she isn’t looking backward.

“I feel like I’m just getting started, which at my age is either incredibly inspiring or slightly delusional. I’m going with inspiring.”

At Felicia Madison’s age, that might be the most interesting punchline of all.

To know more about Felicia Madison, visit https://www.feliciamadison.com/ or follow her on Instagram and Facebook.