Today we’d like to introduce you to Allison Reese.
Hi Allison, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I got my start in Phoenix Arizona doing comedy shows in High School and fell all the way in love with the art of making people laugh. I moved to LA shortly after to take classes and do shows; I lived in the Hollywood area for two years before deciding that I wanted to cut my teeth in Chicago. I spent many years weathering the blistering cold and climbing the ranks in the Chicago comedy scene. I toured with the Second City, I created my own show that uplifted and empowered women of color and queer folks like myself, I even met the love of my life. My spouse and I moved to New York, where it seemed so many doors were finally starting to crack open. I achieved my dreams of being in the CBS Sketch Comedy Showcase, of being named A Just For Laughs New Face of Comedy, I landed a role as a cartoon on Comedy Central, and of course I was able to do my Kamala Harris impression on the silver screen in the movie BROS. After spending a couple of years in New York, my spouse and I drove across the country to make LA home. I had always dreamed of coming back to LA. It was the place that has felt most like home, plus after living in Chicago and New York, I desperately missed the Sun. It was always a question of when not if. My spouse and I are now living in the city of my dreams as we continue on our journey through the entertainment industry.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It hasn’t always been a smooth road. Like anything worth doing, my life and this career have had its challenges. I’ve had to learn how to navigate spaces that weren’t necessarily built for a queer Black woman like myself. I’ve had to overcome so much in regard to racism, homophobia, sexism and their intersections. I’ve learned what and who to invest my energy into. I’ve learned that my joy and spreading that joy is powerful beyond comprehension and that is what I hope to continue to contribute to this world.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a comedian. I have done sketch comedy since I was in high school and started to pursue comedy writing and acting in college. For many years I worked for a comedy theater in Chicago where I wrote, taught, and toured for them all in the name of sketch comedy. Over the pandemic I learned how to take my sketch comedy skills and talents and package them for the internet; I started doing videos and going viral for comedic characters, but things really started to take off once I put my Kamala Harris impression on TikTok. I had been doing this impression since 2019 when I did a showcase for snl in Chicago, but I hadn’t really thought about putting it online until midway through the pandemic. I have since been able to reach the heights of sketch comedy this past year in being a Just For Laughs New Faces of Comedy along with the ’22 CBS Sketch comedy showcase. Since my work has reached millions of people across the globe, I have been able to continue to do what I love through my podcast “The N’kay Hour” where I use my well-known impression as a vehicle to introduce my fans to my brand of sketch comedy, which is silly, political, smart and stupid all at once. It’s funny to look back at my work in comedy and remember rewriting a sketch that Stephen Colbert became known for when he worked at my theatre. It was a risky move to take this beloved 1990s-era satire and rework it to fit the time, to fit me. And now I voice a character on Stephen Colbert Presents: Tooning Out The News, best job I’ve ever had.
There is so much that sets me apart from others and makes me individual, I would hope that includes my collective experiences leading me to this point, the way I want to pursue comedy as a means to bring joy and to hold a mirror to our world, but also that I am as soft as I am fierce.
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
The cool thing about success is that you CAN set up your own definition for it. To me, Success is doing what I love and being near who I love. Success also means lots of money. Success has multiple complicated truths to it.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.allisonreese.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alienreese/?r=nametag
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/alienreese
- Other: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-nkay-hour/id1654233178
Image Credits
Julie Merica; John Jay; Jennifer Giralo
