“Saturday Night Live” writer Maddie Wiener is returning to Commonwealth Comedy Club in Dayton, Ky. for a second comedy show after previously performing there in January 2025.
“I love Commonwealth, it’s such a cool venue. I think it’s, like, so punk rock and so awesome to turn an old church into a comedy club,” she said.
Wiener got her start as a stand-up comedian at her high school in North Carolina. Describing herself as a “big theater kid,” she went to a local open mic night for stand-up.
“I was like, ‘oh cool, let’s give this a try,’ and I met two comics who are still my best friends to this day that were also in high school at the time,” she said. “They showed me around the scene, and we realized we could get up on stage seven nights a week if we drove one hour here, one hour there. Sometimes my mom would even drive me … my parents were so cool about it, they’d let me drive an hour and a half to do three minutes of comedy.”
Eventually, her friends in the area decided they were going to move to Chicago to pursue their comedy dreams. Wiener soon followed; while she was going to college for theatre and film/TV production, her true goal was to make it as a comic. As she graduated, the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown was ending, so she decided, “I’m just gonna head straight to New York.”
It paid off: shortly after moving, she was selected to participate in New York City’s “Just For Laughs Festival” in 2021, which put her name on the map. Over the next few years, she began honing her craft and working at NYC venues The Stand Comedy Club and The Comedy Cellar, where she had a chance encounter with one of the most famous faces from “SNL.”
“Between the two of those, I ended up meeting Michael Che. He eventually ended up recommending me for a job at “SNL,” I went in and interviewed, and that was kinda it. Which is skipping over like, four years of me doing stand-up and lots of other stuff,” she said, laughing. “But essentially, I’m very grateful to Michael Che.”
Her proudest writing moment so far on “SNL” was a parody skit of Alex Honnold’s Free Solo climb, which aired on the sketch comedy series about two months ago. It stars Mikey Day as Alex Honnold, with Kenan Thompson playing a character who also thinks he can attempt Honnold’s daring free climbing activities. She wrote the skit in tandem with Martin Herlihy and Jack Bensinger, who are “two of the funniest people I’ve ever met in my life.”
“That was the first moment where I was like, ‘whoa.’ I had this idea in my head on Monday, and by Saturday it’s on TV,” she said. “I don’t think there’s any other job in show business where you see an idea come to fruition that quickly.”
While she hasn’t experienced much of Cincinnati culture yet, given her four shows this weekend at the Commonwealth Comedy Club, she’s bound to do some exploring.
She plans to hit Tokyo Kitty for some karaoke with her opener, Nick Cartwright, and thinks she’ll finally try Skyline Chili—especially after learning that it’s more like a Bolognese sauce than it is chili, saying, “That doesn’t sound so crazy to do with spaghetti, right? I might just dig in and go all the way.”
Shows like the ones she does at Commonwealth tend to be her favorite because audiences know to expect the unexpected.
“I had so much fun last time. I like doing shows in places that aren’t your typical comedy club, because I think it just puts people in a mindset of being ready to get weirder with it,” she said. “When you’re in a strange space that makes you think ‘we’re not supposed to be doing this here,’ like a church, it allows for the show to go to weird places. It’s such a special, unique venue and the people who run it are amazing.”
When it comes to future career plans, Wiener isn’t too worried about what comes next.
“Honestly, I’m having a lot of fun at “SNL.” It sounds cheesy, but everything that comes after this is just icing on the cake,” she said. “If I’m just doing stand-up and paying my bills, I’m happy. Obviously, I want to put out a special, but if it keeps going just like this and I keep doing this until I’m 75, I’ll be happy.”