Maggi Mayfield: Room for Everybody

I’m not one to ​“dou­ble-dip” often, be it sal­sa, or the amaz­ing guests we have on the podcast.

That said, when this week’s guest, Mag­gi May­field, crossed paths with Valerie Lopez to talk about her back­ground and career, I couldn’t help but notice that she runs her own voiceover con­sult­ing busi­ness, MMMade It Media. Hav­ing been told I have a unique voice (and, occa­sion­al­ly, a ​“face for radio”), one can’t help but won­der if this is when I final­ly try to knock that par­tic­u­lar item off my buck­et list. 

As May­field would say, ​“there’s room for everybody!”. 

In fact, it’s one of the first bits of encour­age­ment / advice May­field toss­es out in her time with Lopez, and far from the last. For­mer­ly of New Jer­sey, with a stint in Cal­i­for­nia, and now based in Austin, she’s tru­ly made her voice her career, whether it be through MMMade It, on com­e­dy stages around town, or her just released album, ​“Wake Up Maggi”.

Going into the cat­a­combs in Paris? May­field advis­es wear­ing a mask, even if you don’t care for it in ​“nor­mal” life (or what we have exchanged for ​“nor­mal”, cur­rent­ly). Won­der­ing if you should snap the shut­ter at a his­tor­i­cal site? ​“Take that pic­ture,” she read­i­ly says. The com­mon thread through it all seems to be a mir­ror of her ambi­tious work ethos: there’s room for every­body to be them­selves, to do their thing.

Maybe it’s all the read­ing and think­ing about death May­field has been doing recent­ly, but she def­i­nite­ly has ​“being in the moment” (and present) on her mind. This stands whether it’s her own goals and focus, or tak­ing the time to see and praise fel­low comics. ​“I think it’s impor­tant to be a fan of your friends,” she says, not­ing the impor­tance of tak­ing the time to stop think­ing about our­selves and ​“go sup­port your friends.” (Some­thing espe­cial­ly impor­tant in a ​“bub­ble” com­prised pri­mar­i­ly of enter­tain­ers, where some­times the inner voice seem­ing­ly nev­er stops talking.)

Sup­port­ing those near and dear has been in Mayfield’s life from the begin­ning, recall­ing ear­ly antics she used to dis­tract and com­fort her fam­i­ly (and her­self) after the death of a beloved grand­moth­er. The Amer­i­can Musi­cal and Dra­mat­ic Acad­e­my (some years lat­er of course), took note and offered her a schol­ar­ship to attend in New York, which she jumped at. It ulti­mate­ly wasn’t the right fit, at the right time, but head­ing back to her home in Cal­i­for­nia turned out to be the cru­cial piv­ot she didn’t know she needed.

Fight­ing that feel­ing of ​“need[ing] to get a real job”, May­field dis­cov­ered a radio broad­cast­ing school in Hunt­ing­ton Beach, begin­ning what she calls a ​“fif­teen year detour”. It’s still going, and, as she admits, is ​“serv­ing her well”. If you went just by what I detailed in the open­ing, it’s hard to dis­agree; that’s not even the full menu of what May­field is dish­ing up these days.

Hav­ing been part of a well-regard­ed improv troupe in the past (as well as their mar­keter and pro­mot­er, nat­u­ral­ly), May­field is look­ing to swiz­zle some of that mag­ic into The Chal­lenge Mic, which she calls an ​“improv style mic”, and ​“won­der­ful work­out space” for comics. Com­ing on stage with­out pre­pared mate­r­i­al is often frowned upon (if not a night­mare in and of itself), but it’s core to this con­cept. It worked beau­ti­ful­ly in pre­vi­ous loca­tions, and there’s no mis­tak­ing her excite­ment when talk­ing of bring­ing it to Austin (in fact, it debuted in Austin on March 22^nd).

Also in the works is a project that incor­po­rates anoth­er of Mayfield’s loves: her gui­tar. An ear­ly and for­tu­itous mix­up saw her end up on stage at what she thought was an open mic; it was, but for musi­cians, not comics. Not one to let the moment pass (as we’ve seen), she per­formed, and a part­ner­ship was born with her friend Ryan, and a show called Comics and Chaos. A mix of music (grungy and ​“punk”, which she notes as anoth­er of her loves) and com­e­dy, she’s look­ing for­ward to bring­ing it to life here.

May­field and gui­tar are rarely part­ed, with the instru­ment in hand help­ing her to tune the comedic instru­ments in her mind. From singing par­o­dies to a for­mer boyfriend in her kitchen, to the afore­men­tioned new LP, it’s served her well. Did she have con­cerns about enter­ing the world of musi­cal par­o­dy, with giants like Weird Al ever tow­er­ing near­by? If you’ve caught her spir­it at this point, her answer won’t sur­prise you a bit: ​“He had to [start it] at some point, when he wasn’t famous; so I can do it too.” And thus came ​“Wake Up Maggi”.

So what else does May­field have brew­ing? Right now she’s ​“spend­ing all her mon­ey, [mak­ing] music videos to make peo­ple laugh.” (It sounds like Lopez may make her music video debut soon!) Inter­est­ed in longer-form con­tent? She admits she’s got a fea­ture-length film idea in her head as well. And of course she’s con­stant­ly busy work­ing on new songs; any­thing to get that laugh­ter fix. ​“When peo­ple laugh, you chase that high for­ev­er,” she jokes, and shows no signs of tak­ing a breather any­time soon.

It’s been said that com­e­dy as a career is a marathon, with hordes of peo­ple all simul­ta­ne­ous­ly striv­ing to break their lim­its and cross that dis­tant fin­ish line. May­field is clear­ly in it to win it, and, far from the crowd­ed field being a deter­rent, she seems to be thriv­ing in it. After all, just like a marathon, there’s room for everybody.

Fol­low Maggi:

• Web­site — www​.mag​gi​may​field​.com
• Twit­ter — @MaggiMayfield
• Insta­gram — @maggimayfield
• Face­book — Face​book​.com/​m​a​g​g​i​.​m​a​y​field
• Tik­tok — @maggimayfield
• Youtube — Youtube​.com/​M​a​g​g​i​M​a​y​field

Mag­gi can be seen and heard:

• Wake Up, Mag­gi (album)
• Self-Iso­lat­ed (movie)
• Host­ed Shows 
  • The Chal­lenge Mic — Tues­days 8pm at Shooters
  • The Brew­tique Com­e­dy Show­case (month­ly) — Sat­ur­day April 2, 7:30pm
• Upcom­ing appearances
  • Com­e­dy Wham Show­case Anniver­sary Show — Tues­day April 5, 7:30pm at Hops & Thyme, Lakeway