Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashley Ray.
Ashley, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I was always obsessed with comedy as a pretentious, Midwestern kid from Rockford, IL. I would print out scripts of Weekend Update and keep them in a binder. I’d practice delivering the lines alone in my room. I loved The State, Stella, Flight of the Conchords and Mitch Hedberg. In elementary school, I’d even perform sets from my favorite comics, just saying their jokes verbatim. Comedy was always something I loved, but I never really saw it as something I could take seriously. The black women I saw doing it always played the straight man or weren’t given space to do the weird kind of alt stuff I thought looked interesting.
So, I kind of just figured comedy wasn’t a thing for “people like me” to do, but I was a performer. I got into storytelling and spoken word and did that throughout high school and college at a competition level, which is embarrassing. But after graduating and moving to Chicago, I realized I hated it. I hated the way the audiences would look at me like I was some tragic black girl there to share her sad story and make them feel. I only liked when people laughed at my stories. Some friends said I should try open mics and I never looked back. Along the way, I started working in advertising and that led me to a job at The Onion and that showed me I could make a living being the weird comedy kid I always wanted to be.
Now, I’m a stand-up comedian, writer and pop culture expert. At Williams College, I focused on creative writing and TV studies and started freelancing in 2016. Now, I write about TV and culture for places like The A.V. Club, The Guardian, Vulture, Elle and Cosmopolitan.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Yes and no. I think I face a lot of the same struggles all comics face when they come up: finding your voice, finding the people who like you and your crowd, figuring out your “thing.” Then you double all that for all the identifiers in my bio: being black, being a woman, being bisexual, being poly, those are just additional layers I have to translate to audiences to get my whole thing across. That can be harder sometimes. At the same time, it’s this great time to come up as a black queer comic because there’s more community than ever before and that means more opportunity.
Then there’s, yknow, the personal life struggles: I deal with mental health issues like most comedians and that doesn’t make things easier. There’s the physical struggles. About two years into my career, I had to have surgery. I was really sick and had to cancel a lot of shows. I felt like I was letting people down because I’d just gotten to a stage in my career where I was regularly booking these things. As soon as I was out of the hospital, I hit the stage and tried to start touring again. I rushed things and discovered it’s a whole lot better to give myself time to rest. When you love doing something, it’s hard to say no. It’s hard to remember it can drain you if you don’t take breaks.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
I’m starting a podcast called TV, I Say with Ashley Ray which debuts Oct. 23rd wherever you get your podcasts. It’s about TV! Obviously!
Most people probably know me from Twitter though where I either make you laugh, annoy you or give you great TV recommendations. I understand that my feed is a bit much, so I actually started a somewhat-weekly newsletter this year for people to get the highlights called “wtf is ashley ray tweeting about now?” I write about entertainment, politics, and my life. Marie Claire named it “One Of the Best 2020 Newsletters to Subscribe to That Will Keep You Informed and Entertained” so I’m very proud of that!
I’m doing Zoom shows since live comedy is still cancelled and I actually really like it! I also recently co-edited Maria Bamford’s latest audiobook, You Are (A Comedy) Special, which is available on Audible. It’s a self-help guide about writing your first comedy special. Maria is a role model and icon in comedy for me, so working on that project meant a lot to me. I’m pretty much constantly in a state of either editing something, writing something or researching something. Scripts, articles, sketches, tweets—the only good thing about quarantine is that I’ve reconnected with my love of writing.
What were you like growing up?
My dad died when I was 14, so I remember sort of two distinct phases of my childhood: this early period full of weird kid happiness and excitement and this other half where I was like, Daria on depressants. I always really liked being alone though. I’d spend hours reading, watching TV, playing with dolls. My bedroom was my only sanctuary because everything was so loud and busy all the time. My mom ran a daycare in our house, so the entire first floor was a giant childcare center. When I was little, it was the dream. All my friends always wanted to come to my house because I had a huge playground and all these toys. I always had people to play with because the daycare was open for 1st and 2nd shift. It was my house, so I was like, King of the Castle.
When I hit my teenage years, having a slide in my living room stopped impressing my friends and that fed into my whole “depressed kid dead dad club” thing too so I isolated myself more. I got tired of waking up to the sound of kids screaming and crying. That’s when I really started writing though. I interned at the local paper where I grew up. I’d write for free just so I could get press passes to things like Warped Tour or whatever. I was the kind of kid who went to journalism camp and said things like “I’m not here to make friends.”
I was a huge smart ass and super competitive because I went to this really small school where I was the only black kid in my class. I never wanted to be a popular kid, because who wants to be popular with a bunch of white kids? But I did want them to know I was smarter than them, so I’d push myself to study multiple languages, multiple art classes, and participate in every school play while maintaining my grades. I was really 17 years old getting stress hives over Latin exams. It took me a long time to learn that I don’t have to prove myself to anyone.
But also, I smoke a lot of weed now because I know I can be a driven little monster. Now I just wanna go back to journalism camp and sneak cigarettes with the junior counselors.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.theashleyray.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/theashleyray; www.instagram.com/tvisaypod
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/theashleyray; www.twitter.com/tvisaypod
Image Credit:
Lee Jameson (pink background), Eric Strom (GlitterGuts/Fly Honey photos)
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