We recently connected with Asya Toney and have shared our conversation below.

Asya, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you think your parents have had a meaningful impact on you and your journey?

I raised by a single mother with my older brothers. I remember that while we certainly weren’t rich we never went without. Even when things were tight, my mom always found a way to get us by. Growing up I always knew that I wanted to be a performer, my first time seeing Cats the musical on VHS solidified that. My mother was supportive from day one. When we moved to Colorado from Washington D.C. she worked hard to keep my brothers and me involved in as many extra curricular activities that we could handle. My first instrument was the violin, which I was pretty good at. Then I went into Poms dancing and even did pageants for a while. I went from gymnastics to cheerleading and finally settled on musical theater. Throughout it all, my mom was my biggest supporter and number one fan. She never told me I couldn’t do something and in hindsight, I now see just how hard she worked so that I could do all of these things. Some of the hobbies I had were pretty expensive to maintain but so long as I was able to keep my grades up, my mom found a way. She never stifled my progress as an artist, she pushed me to try new things and to challenge myself. She was my greatest influence in wanting to pursue higher education and she never made it an issue of money or status. She just supported me and gave me the tools to make the best possible decisions for myself. As a result I support myself entirely through my art, I own my own production company, and I’ve made an actual impact within the communities that I’m a part of. Because of her support and example I have the confidence it takes to thrive in one of the most cut-throat industries on the planet. Without that support I wouldn’t be where I am today. It’s important to make mistakes but equally as important to have someone there to help you work through those mistakes and guide you so that you can learn and progress. The gratitude I have for my mom is truly endless, and she hasn’t stopped supporting me to this day! There are some moms who would struggle to see their child go-go dance at a nightclub or make crude jokes while hosting drag bingo, but not my mom. She’s always front and center, in fact, she’s never missed a single performance I’ve had. When I was earning my Masters in the UK, she flew out to see the show I had created which became the name for my company. No matter what I’m doing or where it is, she’s right there to cheer me on. You truly can’t survive in the entertainment industry without love like that.

Asya, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a proud Black, queer, woman with a passion for performance. I began performing when I was a child and have over 20 years of experience in the entertainment industry. A few years ago I started my own company, American Pharaoh Productions. After returning from grad school in the UK I felt that there was a void in the theater industry that needed to be filled. In the modern age, the peoples of the global majorities and the disenfranchised are still under and misrepresented in theater and media. I wanted to create something that gave people like myself the opportunity to create and cultivate their own art. To tell their own stories in their most authentic ways, through the eyes of the people who experienced some of the worlds greatest hardships. I have worked to be able to offer a myriad of platforms for people to showcase their talents and share their narratives with as many people as possible. Whether they are looking to perform, write, compose, design, educate, or produce, I want to make artistic and creative resources readily available for people of color and other marginalized groups. I believe that the arts are truly the only thing which can stop our current path of self destruction and bring us into a new age of enlightenment and genuine understanding. We have used art as a form of entertainment, education, connection, stress relief, and a plethora of other things since the dawn of man. I look to keep that integral part of human culture alive by working with the people of the world.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Whenever I think about my resilience I can’t help but think of the experience I had in grad school concerning our end of year projects. We each had to write, produce, promote, and perform in an original cabaret along with writing a dissertation on a topic of our choice. For the cabaret, we had to create the entire production from start to finish. I chose to tell the story of the struggle of Black women throughout the ages and how despite it all, we have survived and continue to be a source of strength for and and inspiration to the world. How we continue to influence and impact modern culture in a way that no other group of people ever has.
For the dissertation, I chose to discus the differences and similarities of the theater industries of the US and the UK, focusing primarily on the experience as a Black woman. My ideas were not initially met with enthusiasm form my very British, very male instructors. They felt that what I was describing may have been true in America, but the history and experience of Black people and Black women in the UK was very different. It was a difficult time for me, being so far away from home, with no one there to support me. I almost completely restarted the projects and changed my ideas to something entirely different. But after a conversation with my mom and going over everything again, I realized that their resistance to me telling my story and my experience and the historical experiences of other Black women was actually their discomfort. They had never had a Black American student before and my story just wasn’t one they connected with at all. It was clear that that was precisely why I needed to go forward with my projects as they were. I refused to let them tell me what my experience was and I was determined to show them just how problematic their discomfort with my experience was. Despite them telling me things like, “a British audience just won’t understand your point of view”, “that’s not quite how things happened here”, and “if you make people feel bad, they won’t want to listen”. I performed my cabaret telling the story of Black women from Ancient Egypt to current politicians. I asked an entirely white audience, with the exception of my mother and aunt, to join me in singing I Will Survive in respect to Black women having survived slavery, segregation, suffrage, oppression, racism, and violence. And much to my instructors surprise, my show was sold out, and the crowd loved every single moment of it. They left feeling as though they had been called to action, not called out. Not made to feel bad but made to understand that the world owes a great deal to Black women, but at the end of the day all we want is the fair opportunity to live out our happiest and healthiest lives. We simply want to live unencumbered by any one person or societies expectations of who and what we should be. My dissertation received some of the highest marks in my class and i even got an apology from the instructors who fought so hard to convince me to change my narrative to fit their own. It was truly the greatest victory of my collegiate career.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I think that society can better support creatives in several ways. Beginning with allowing children to have full access to a wide rang of different forms of art and creating. Don’t stifle the creative process but rather encourage it from as early as possible. Then, allow adolescents to express themselves in whatever wild ways they can think of so long as they’re safe. These are a person’s most formative years and having the confidence to express yourself is crucial to development. Finally, giving creatives the resources to figure out how they can apply their interests and talents for the betterment of society. If the pandemic showed us one thing, it was that the people who were impacted the most were also somehow the people whose skills were in the highest demand. Everyone needed entertainment, stress relief, and joy. A great number of people found it in watching performances of all types, in trying their hand at something new like painting, in rediscovering their passions for writing, and reading, in creating! So many people realized how unsatisfied they were in their ives and because no one could go anywhere, a great deal of people figured out how to monetize on these rekindled passions. We know see that nearly every single profession, every facet of life contains some kind of artistic input and when the creative ecosystem thrives the world thrives.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://asyatoney.wixsite.com/atoney
• Instagram: Www.instagram.com/freda_slaves10
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/asya.toney.1
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Asya_Tee

Image Credits
BAPPs Flyer / Photos – Danny Ramirez Step Into Black History Flyer – JT Tafoya Hair Majesty Flyer – Self