“Laughter is an instant vacation. ” — Milton Berle
If Uncle Milty is right, get ready to go on holiday. I met Tammy Peay (pronounced “P.A.”) at the second-season premier of “Finding Me,” the hit online TV series based on the popular film. The talented comedian pretty much stole the show whenever she appeared on screen (more about the show later when I interview the show’s creator and director, Roger S. Omeus, Jr.). An openly lesbian black stand-up comedian — long before Ms. Sykes — the hilarious Ms. Peay took a moment to sit down with PGN and talk about her life and career.
PGN: Where are you from? TP: I’m a native New Yorker but I moved to Pennsylvania about 12 years ago. I live in the Lehigh Valley area.
PGN: What part of New York did you grow up in? TP: I was born in Brooklyn and raised in Queens and Long Island.
PGN: [Laughs.] OK, when you said “Lawng GuyIsland” I heard the accent! I understand you’re from a big family. TP: I’m the youngest of seven. My dad was self-employed — he owned a metal-recycling business, a restaurant and a bar, and my mother was a nurse practitioner.
PGN: Sounds like he might be where you got your entrepreneurial spirit? TP: A lot. I don’t find peace on the job, I hate working for people. I have to run my own thing.
PGN: Life with seven kids? TP: It was good. It taught me a lot about life, things like sharing and friendships. It was an enriching environment. I had three sisters and three brothers. I gravitated more to my brothers but everyone was a lot of fun, a lot of jokes, a lot of laughs. It was a good childhood.
PGN: Who was your partner in crime and what was the worst trouble you got into? TP: My brother, Kenny. When he got his driver’s license and his first car, we cut school to go to Jones Beach. We stayed at the beach all day long. I’d just gone to the beauty parlor and had had my hair done, but after being at the beach all day I came home and my hair was a giant afro. My mom was like, “What’s wrong with your hair?” After seeing sand fall out, my mother figured out what was up. After that we weren’t allowed to drive to school in the morning anymore, we had to take the bus.
PGN: What were you like as a child? Bookish? Athletic? Theatrical? TP: A little bit of everything. I danced and did gymnastics as a kid. I was always in accelerated classes but got in trouble because I liked to make people laugh.
PGN: What was a particular time you remember when you got in trouble? TP: I had one teacher who used to pull my chair up right next to her desk. I was like, “Why does she always want me to sit next to her?” She said, “That’s so I can hear the joke too!” I always liked to have a good time, as long as it was fun and not hurting or making fun of anyone.
PGN: I guess being the baby of the bunch helped. TP: Yeah, I grew up with a lot of attention from all my siblings. I think that set me up to be a little spoiled for attention.
PGN: What were some of your other extracurricular activities? TP: I did cheerleading for a minute until I realized I hated it, I played the clarinet and was a flag girl in the marching band but I didn’t like the inclement-weather thing, so I decided to move indoors and do drama and I was in a few plays in school. I always found my happiness on stage. I started out doing public speaking when I was really young. The family attended an international church and we traveled a lot. The first time I spoke was for the church was when I was 7 years old and it was in front of an audience of about 3,000 people. I got a standing ovation and I enjoyed the attention and the high that I got from it. Even at that age I wasn’t scared — I don’t know why but I wasn’t. To this day, I’m more comfortable speaking to thousands of people on a stage then having to speak to someone one-on-one.
PGN: How old were you when you came out? TP: Wow, I don’t remember ever being in. All my friends were gay so I think everyone had a pretty good idea but, when I was about 15, someone told my mother that she saw me hugging on some girl and that’s how she officially knew. I’d already told my father when I was about 14. My aunt always had these turbulent relationships with men and I told my dad, “I’m never going to go through that. I’m going to live with a woman, and we’re going to pay our bills on time and we’ll have a nice car and a nice house.” He looked at me and said, “Whatever floats your boat.” And that was it, he never said anything negative about it.
PGN: Who was your first crush? TP: Oh my God, her name was Dumasani Griff but she went by Liz. She just passed away about three weeks ago.
PGN: How did you meet your current partner, Cynthia? TP: We met in 2012 on a cruise ship. I was performing and she was vacationing. We had a good time.
PGN: I guess so! She obviously liked your show. How did you get into standup? TP: It happened by accident. A friend of mine was singing at a place called Don’t Tell Mama. She was running late and said to me, “I need you to go out there and talk to the people while I get ready.” I said to her, “Talk to them about what?” She said, “I don’t know! Just go talk!” So I went out on stage and just started talking, the crowd went wild and I got a huge ovation. There were some industry people in the audience and the next time I was onstage it was at Caroline’s in New York and then I went on the road with a comedy group. I didn’t plan it, it just happened. People always told me I was funny but I never really accepted it. I certainly never thought of it as a profession. But once I had that experience making people laugh, I realized that that was what I wanted to do.
PGN: What were you doing prior to that moment? TP: I was working for the state of New York as a corrections officer. I hated every minute of it but I didn’t know quite what I wanted to do next, I just knew I wanted to find something that would bring me joy and would make me feel good about going to work.
PGN: What was the most dangerous and the craziest situation you faced? TP: The most dangerous was in 1990. I was there when they had a full-out riot in the prison. There were hundreds of people fighting and bashing each other in the head, it scared me half to death. My craziest moment was one night as I was walking past a cell, I don’t know what made me look inside — maybe because it was my job — but I glanced inside and I saw my friend’s husband having sex with another man. Awkward! I never said anything to her because she was so head-over-heels in love with him, I don’t think she would’ve believed me. I could hardly believe it because he was extremely homophobic — he hated gay people, me and anyone else we knew that was gay. So it was mind-blowing for me to catch him like that … and he was pretty good at what he was doing! PGN: As a comedian you must run into some crazy situations too. TP: Oh yes. One time, I got booked to play out of town. They sent me my confirmations for the flight, hotel, etc. But when I got to the hotel there was no reservation for me, so I called the promoter to see what was going on. She said, “Oh, well, just come to my house and I’ll take care of it.” I said, “I’m not going to anybody’s house, that’s not acceptable.” She kept on insisting that I could stay at her house. I just said, “Why don’t you come here and we’ll get something to eat and straighten this out?” When I got to the bottom of it, it turned out there was no event, there was no show, there was no hotel. She’d concocted all of it just to get me to her house! I knew something was up because when we were driving, she stopped at the house of every person she knew. One of her friend’s girlfriends said to me, “Yeah, she said she met you online and that you were coming to spend the weekend.” It was crazy. We had a contract signed and I thought I had a show booked. Little did I know, the show was me. I should have known something was up when she showed up at the hotel all dressed up like she was going on a date. After that, I was reluctant to travel alone again.
PGN: You were a mail-order bride! [Laughs.] I guess it was flattering in a psycho-stalkerish way? TP: Yeah, I don’t know how she thought she was going to pull it off, how she was going to explain why there was no show. I guess she thought once she wooed me, I would forget all about why I was supposed to be there!
PGN: So how did you get involved with “Finding Me”? TP: I met Roger at a party and really liked him and the crew. I gave my booking manager a copy of the DVD and he was really impressed with them. He booked them on the next cruise event that we did. They did a screening of the movie and everyone loved it. I invited them to my show on the ship and told them, “If you ever have any role available, I would love to be part of the show.” They managed to find a part for me in the second season and I had a blast. I really love those kids. They’re really great to work with and they really work hard. I admire their drive.
PGN: Tell me about your character. TP: I play the main female lead’s older sister. She’s bossy and loud and takes no prisoners. She cusses everyone out and it’s a lot of fun. When I left after doing her for the first time I was like, “Oh, that feels good!”
PGN: I watched some of your standup and noticed that you don’t curse a lot. TP: No, I don’t generally. It depends on the crowd; sometimes they really want that but overall I feel when you curse, or when you just pick on the crowd and humiliate people, it seems like you’re not prepared.
PGN: What made a New York comic move to Pennsylvania? TP: I had been gigging here and after a show I went out shopping and got lost. I saw a house and I bought it. I’ve been here for 12 years now.
PGN: What would you tell a New Yorker visiting Philadelphia? TP: Enjoy the food and the people here. Philadelphia is really nice. It’s a great cultural center and the hub of so much stuff — history, architecture, the arts. It’s Philly you need to be concerned about! Stay away from the dark corners.
PGN: Tell me about being a mom. TP: My son David is 18. Oh God, he’ll be 19 in June. He’s my reason for everything. He’s in college. He’s smart as hell and works two jobs. I don’t know who his mother is but I’m glad they made the switch!
PGN: You talk about him being gay in your act. When did he come out to you? TP: When he was about 14. I have gay friends who don’t want gay kids. What they don’t realize is that as long as kids have support and good role models, people who are successful and responsible and live a healthy life, it’s a different gay child. I’ve seen what happens when children are thrown out into the street. I’ve housed homeless teens in my house — kids who were thrown out not because they were bad or disrespectful, but just because they were gay. To me, you’re not a bad parent because you have a gay child, you’re a bad parent when you fail to support that child.
PGN: Let’s go for some random questions. People are always telling me I need to stop … TP: Being funny at inappropriate times. I was doing standup at my dad’s funeral. But you have to laugh.
PGN: What’s something you do when no one’s watching? TP: Pick the nuts out of my butter-pecan ice cream.
PGN: A story about a grandparent … TP: My mother’s mother was a churchgoing Christian woman and also a slumlord. That’s awful to say, but it’s true. She would rent places where she wouldn’t live. She was extremely frugal; she had a brand-new car and refused to turn on the air-conditioning in the summer. It could be 1,000 degrees out and she would be terrified she would lose a penny in gas money if she turned the air on. In the winter time she would give us blankets in the car so she didn’t have to turn on the heat.
PGN: Your worst outfit ever? TP: It was for the “OUTMusic Awards.” It was a black and silver dress that made me look like a pig wrapped in foil. It was horrible. But the designer for the dress was in the audience so I had to wear it because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
PGN: If you could ask God a question, what would it be? TP: Why does he take the good people and leave the bad people down here to make everyone miserable?
PGN: So what’s on your plate for the near future? TP: I’m so excited, there’s season two of “Finding Me” and, this summer, I’m going to be hosting an amazing event! Tona Brown is a transgender violinist-vocalist and she’s on a mission to be the first African-American violinist to perform at Carnegie Hall. She recently performed for President Obama, and this is going to make history. There’s never been a transgender person and a lesbian of color at Carnegie Hall. There’s never been an LGBT event of any kind at Carnegie Hall.
PGN: Wow! How did that come about? TP: We were out shoe-shopping and decided to collaborate on something that’s never been done before. Tona said, “What’s the biggest thing you can dream of?” I said, “I’m a New Yorker and I’ve never played on a major stage before. Just once, I want to do Carnegie Hall.” We’ve raised about half the money so we’re almost there but we need more support from the community to make this happen. And it’s really important that we support the trans community. We often forget about the T in LGBT; we push the T to the side and many times discriminate against them. This is a chance to do something beautiful and good. I hope people will go to htTP://www.indiegogo.com/projects/help-get-tona-brown-to-carnegie-hall and contribute. And help spread the word through articles like this one. We’re partnering with GLAAD and are hoping to do the concert in June for Pride week in New York.
PGN: And I hope to be in the front row! For more information on Tammy Peay, visit www.facebook.com/tammy.peay.7. For more information on “Finding Me,” visit www.findingmetheseries.com.
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