We were lucky to catch up with Tracy Hamilton recently and have shared our conversation below.

Tracy, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

I do think about this a fair bit actually. I did my first stand up set in high school when I was 17 at the Arts Camp I attended, but I didn’t commit to stand up fully after that. I just did maybe 1 set a year after that until I was 25, when I decided to make it my career.

Sometimes I wish that I’d fully gone for it after that first set when I was 17; I wonder if I “wasted” that time, or if I would be farther ahead by now. I think ultimately though that everything happened the way it was supposed to. In comedy my job is self-reflection and sharing my stories, and those extra eight years before I started were just more time for me to live life and gather the experiences that I would mine later for material. Also I doubt anything I had to say at 17 was very groundbreaking.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m a stand up comedian based in Toronto, ON and I would describe my comedic style as “personal storytelling”. I talk about my life and what’s on my mind. I have a very analytical approach in my writing; I love to take a subject and break it apart under a microscope. I feel very lucky to have found a way to be a professional over-thinker!

A reviewer once described me as “cheerfully sarcastic” and I feel that’s pretty accurate. I’m a very positive person and have a real camp-counsellor-energy, but I can also be sharp and a little biting (in a playful way) and I enjoy working with that contrast.

My subject matter changes all the time because I really like to focus on what’s most on my mind currently, but some of the subjects on my most recent stand up comedy album (titled Human Person, streaming everywhere you get music), include mental health, mistakes in relationships and dating, social anxiety and queer identity.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

The main goal I have with my comedy is to take shame and turn it into joy. I want to look at all of the parts of life, all the parts of myself that feel shameful or uncomfortable and find a new way of looking at them.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I think hustle-culture is really toxic. It’s easy in a business like this (comedy) to feel pressured to be working non-stop all of the time, but in my experience that isn’t good for art of any kind and only leads to burn-out. Don’t get me wrong, stage time is really important but it’s also important to take time for rest, time for living your life so you have something to talk about in your comedy. I know for me my best ideas come to me when I’m bored, staring out a window so I’ve had to learn to see rest as being productive too.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.tracyhamilton.net
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hamiltrace
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRR8Ffd_1TV1CmIZdpuxtOA

Image Credits

Headshots by Ramy Arida

Stage photos by Leif Norman