We recently connected with Aja Houston and have shared our conversation below.

Aja , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. I’m sure there have been days where the challenges of being an artist or creative force you to think about what it would be like to just have a regular job. When’s the last time you felt that way? Did you have any insights from the experience?

I am happy with my decision to always choose the pursuit of an artist over a steady “regular” 9-5 job that offers financial stability. I believe it is my vocation, my calling to be a playwright and actor. Don’t get me wrong, I am not necessarily happy (who would be?) with the hardships caused by the financial instability and job insecurity of being an artist. The path of an artist winds around mountains of uncertainty because there is no proven, straightforward way to succeed compared to a profession such as a lawyer. A career I hoodwinked my mother into believing I would pursue in college. I’ve had to work every job under the sun to support myself, especially living in the expensive meccas of the entertainment industry, New York City, and Los Angeles. They have ranged from officiating weddings in London to performing children’s plays dressed in penguin costumes for the Central Park Zoo. Besides money, it provided a treasure trove of life experiences for my writing. When it’s all said and done, I cannot fathom doing anything other than writing and acting. It continually blesses me with unique experiences, fortifies my resilience, and grants me the freedom to express myself through my craft.

Aja , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

During my senior year in high school, I moved on from my unrealistic dream of becoming a glamorous supermodel like Naomi Campbell to embrace my dramatic leanings as an actor fully. I studied acting throughout my undergraduate career in the Pomona College theatre department. From day one, I fell in love with being onstage and a vital part of the theatre communion. I played significant roles in A Streetcar Named Desire, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the musical Hair. It was more rewarding than stomping on a runway could ever be.
My artistic journey took an exciting turn when I graduated from college and got married on the same day to a British man I met while studying abroad at an acting conservatory in London. I moved there a week later, determined to be a successful working actor despite being American. The real world disabused me of the notion it is easy to achieve that goal quickly. I learned that the British don’t as easily embrace us acting there as we do them. I became used to rejection, but my thick skin was never deterred. I booked some jobs, but over time, I became disenchanted with the female roles, specifically for Black women, I was going up for. They were few, one-dimensional, repetitive, and unimaginative. So, I thought I would write those stories I yearned to act in and see on stage. When I moved to NYC, I began my journey as a playwright.
I took invaluable classes at Primary Stage’s Einhorn School of Performing Arts. Soon, I developed my plays with small theatre companies and was accepted into regional play festivals. Eventually, I realized that to advance my career, I needed to commit to honing my craft at the highest level. So, I headed west to LA to earn my MFA in Dramatic Writing at USC.
There, I learned practical skills of creating character and dynamic world-building to elevate my work.
My work is created with politics and magical realism to build off-kilter, uncanny worlds to tell nuanced, humanizing Black stories led by Black women.
As a Black woman in this country, I constantly contend with a world that seeks to limit me and my possibilities. The beauty of being a writer is that I can freely create magically realistic worlds without limitations, where people who look like me can be and do anything.
From the Black Grimm Forest that borders all fifty states to the fierce Superdome of the Ms. B. Beautiful pageant, where brawn is just as necessary as beauty, I revel in my unique creations.
After years of focusing solely on writing, I am excited to return to my acting roots in 2024. I will star in my psychological thriller short film Missing Rhythms, produced by Regina Hoyle’s amazing RLH Productions. This opportunity is a full-circle moment. I began writing to create characters that would resonate with me as an actor.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My artistic mission is to humanize the Black diaspora and widen the scope of the stories told about us. We are not a monolith. We are full of nuance, just as every culture is. I will never audaciously claim that my writing represents the entire Black community. We each have our own unique experience and valid point of view. My mission is not born out of want but need. I must tell stories that heal, challenge, and call us to action. I deeply care about every play, every television script, every screenplay. None of it is a throwaway or aimed at simply selling. I would rather say nothing if I am not saying something with my work. Even a simple love story showing two Black people fiercely loving on each other is still a militant act.
Another vital part of my artistic mission is fostering other storytellers of color, from teenagers to seniors who never dared to write. As a teaching artist at Center Theatre Group and the Geffen Playhouse, I assure my students their voices deserve to be heard, to take up space, and to grow their confidence bravely. It is enriching to witness my students’ hard-earned growth and to know I had a part in their artistic journey.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I come from a long line of resilient women whom many trials and tribulations have shaped. Our motto is “We Get Up.” Even though life has its inevitable challenges, I don’t know any other way to be but resilient. In 2014, I faced one of my most difficult challenges: my divorce. Driven by an acute sense of failure, I left New York, where I had built a life with my ex-husband, to San Francisco to live with my parents. It was humbling. The deepest of depression unrelentingly clung to me as I grieved my immense loss. I barely had the strength to get out of bed, much less raise pen to paper or think of auditioning for a role. My sense of self was rocked, and my joy and purpose as an artist seemed dead and gone.
However, as I traveled along my path to gradual healing, I rediscovered my love for my art. I began journaling daily, acting in friends’ rehearsed readings, and eventually auditioning again. The turning point of my career was when I played the title role in a children’s play, Anansi the Spider, at the B Street Theatre in Sacramento. They put me up in an apartment during the run. After a year of living with my parents, I remembered what it was like being an independent adult. I remembered I was a more than capable adult whose resilience brought me here. What would be the next chapter of my life now that I was finally on the last page of the previous one? After some soul-searching, I decided to apply to grad school for writing.
The rest is history. I got up from one of the lowest points of my life. I have not lost sight of my creative journey and purpose since.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ajahouston.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ajaoneandonly/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aja-houston-8990a826/
• Other: https://www.rlhprod.com/missingrhythms