I went to see Wildwood, the new stop-motion animated film from LAIKA Studios. These are the same hands who created the beloved film Coraline. A halloween classic! I went with one of my friends and their firstborn daughter, who is around ten years old, and let me tell you, this movie is rated PG-13. I was just trying to connect with a child and perhaps showed them something beyond their years…but ya know it builds character. Or I've learned if I ever have children I’ll be an unfit mother. Time will tell! Either way the little one enjoyed the film. I walked into the theater anticipating a fantasy story and I left with a huge reminder. I left being reminded of something so important when it comes to art, time, ambition and what it means to create something extraordinary in our lifetime.

First, a fun fact Wildwood is based on the fantasy novel by Colin Meloy, the lead singer and songwriter of The Decemberists, and illustrated by his wife, Carson Ellis. New relationship goal is to write a children’s novel and have my partner illustrate it for me. (My requirements to date me keep getting longer.)

I genuinely could not believe what I was watching. When you see this film you’re going to be stunned. You’ll be thinking…THAT was stop-motion animation?! What?! The film took sixteen years to make.

Sixteen years.

Let me repeat that for those of us who have spent the past week panicking because we have not posted enough content, written enough pages, made enough money, or accomplished enough to justify our existence: SIXTEEN YEARS!

Think about what that actually means. Stop-motion animation requires artists to physically move a puppet a tiny distance, take a photograph, move it again, and take another photograph. Then they do it again. And again. And again. You need to have such a clear vision of what you want the end product to be. You need to know where those puppets are going before you even begin. What a map! What a scale!

And here I was, sitting in a theater, watching the finished product, thinking about how much time I spend feeling as though I am not doing enough.

I think about the projects I have made this year. I think about the things I have written, filmed, tried to get off the ground, the meetings, the ideas I have pitched, the performances, and the countless hours spent trying to convince the world that something I believe in is worth paying attention to. And despite all of that, there is still a little voice in my head that whispers, “You should be further along by now. You should have more to show for yourself. You should have made something bigger by now. Did you take your vitamins you dumb bitch?”

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And perhaps that is why Wildwood affected me as much as it did. Because the film is not simply an example of extraordinary craftsmanship. It’s an example of what happens when people commit themselves to an idea for years, even when the rest of the world has no way of knowing it’ll support it. Imagine being one of those artists who dedicated years of their lives to this story and still have to pray someone buys a ticket. They have no control over if the general population will come. I pray they do but…they can’t control that.

The artists can’t go to every theater and convince people to see their film. (God knows I would.) They can’t force people to sit down. (Once again…I would.) They can’t guarantee that the thing they have spent years creating will find its audience. They can only do the work and create to the best of their abilities and hope. HOPE!

How many projects are left on a computer because they didn’t find an audience? How many monologues are left unspoken because they weren’t chosen? How many substacks are left unread?! And how many of us have decided we are failing simply because the results have not arrived on the schedule we imagined?

I want the career. I want to make things that matter. I want to tell stories that reach people. I want to build a life in which making art does not mean constantly worrying about whether I can afford to live. I want to know that all the work I have put into my projects is leading somewhere. I want the phone call, the meeting, the person who says yes, the opportunity that changes everything. Don’t we all?! It’s insane to me that people aren’t honest about that. It’s okay to state what you want out of life. You’re allowed to want nice things.

But watching Wildwood made me consider whether I have been measuring my progress the wrong way.

Perhaps my question I should be asking isn’t…how much did I DO…but how much did I dare to try? There is something really sexy about taking your time and being intentional. There is also something really punk-ass about being present and following your map in a world that demands instant gratification.

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Time is such a strange thing. Humans created clocks, calendars, anniversaries and birthdays and all this stuff involving the marking of time. We also made up the rules on if we are behind or not. Who is making these laws?! I need to stop and do some stop-motion animation on my own life. I need to see that these hands have made things and the world will never see the work it took.

I don’t know how long something will take. I’m sure the animators of this film didn’t walk in saying, “SIXTEEN YEARS! HERE WE GO!” And then jump for joy. I’m sure they just hunkered down and said, “This is the story we are telling to the best of our abilities.” And whatever time passed by simply passed by. They were on a mission. They knew they had a job to do and they simply did it without worrying about the years going by. (That’s not true. I’m sure people were freaking out about how much time it would take.)

We all must try to stop-motion our own lives. Take in your growth and be comfortable with the time. We can all try to remember that the value of a creative life cannot be measured solely by how quickly the world rewards it.

So, please, go see Wildwood. Let yourself be transported into a world that took an extraordinary amount of human patience to create. It’s a film worth your time. The artists spent so much time making it worth your time.

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And if you happen to be an artist who has been feeling behind BREATHE. Let this film remind you that there are people out there who understand what it means to devote yourself to an idea before you know whether the world will embrace it.

We’re all in the same boat. We all dedicate our lives to a project before we know the end results. The world will see the results but never the passage of time. I’m sure we all could use the ability to stop and take in how far we’ve all come.

“It's better to live presently. By living thus, perhaps we can learn to understand the nature of this fragile coexistence we share with the world around us.” ~ Wildwood

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I have been a little busy this week, and by busy I mean I just wrapped on a new film that I believe will really scare ya.

Over the last week, we made a found footage horror film called VIRAL, which we are planning to release on YouTube over Halloween weekend. This film is directed by Braden McClain, written by Caroline Abbott, and stars a wonderfully talented group of people who came together to make something ambitious, strange, and absolutely terrifying. This has been a project in the works for quite sometime and it’s finally come together. Don’t you just love when an idea becomes an entire film?!

The idea for Viral first came to me around January of this year. I had been thinking about how we could bring social media creators and filmmakers together to make something that felt bigger than the sum of its parts. I wanted to see what could happen if we took the world of online creators, gathered an extraordinary group of people together, and made a proper film out of it. You can also get away with a lot in the world of “found footage”…I mean my weird vertical film "LOCK YOUR DOORS” was a found footage and won third place in the international film competition held by ReelShorts. This film needs to grab our viewers attention. I think we nailed it.

What would happen if even just 10% of this casts following clicked the link and watched? How do I prove to the studios and the “big heads” I have the “goods”? You get their attention…and the internet loves attention.

I pitched the idea to Caroline Abbott and Braden McClain and essentially said, “I got an idea!” Which to be fair to friends…is when they know they have to take a a nap and prepare because when I say, “I have an idea” means I’m going to figure out how to make it happen. I hate ideas…I love a plan. I’m surrounded by incredibly talented people who have earned and deserve the world. It’s about finding a way to get a project that showcases everyone’s abilities. I wanted us to take a big swing, to create something that could stand on its own as a film while also bringing together people with different audiences, skills, and creative backgrounds. I wanted to see what we could accomplish if we all got our hands bloody and dirty.

So…what’s the film about Allison? I’m so glad you asked!

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Viral follows a group of influencers who are invited to a social media event, only to discover that the gathering is actually a nightmare orchestrated by a woman who has been terribly wronged by the internet. I play that woman, and I’m very excited for you to meet her. She has some grievances, to put it mildly, and she is not particularly interested in resolving them through a thoughtful Instagram carousel or “letting it go”. Sometimes a woman reaches her limit, and sometimes that limit involves a found footage horror film.

What interested me most about this story was the contradiction at the center of our online lives. The internet can bring people together in extraordinary ways. It can introduce us to artists we would never otherwise meet, create communities across continents, give people a platform when traditional gatekeepers have shut the door, and allow someone sitting in their bedroom to build an audience that reaches millions of people. I have experienced the possibilities of that world firsthand, and I am grateful for them. Look at my Substack! I’ve been read by thousands upon thousands of people! That is so crazy to me.

But the same internet that connects us can also turn us into commodities, where our attention becomes a currency, our private lives become content, and our worth can begin to feel suspiciously connected to how many strangers are willing to watch us exist. Social media isn’t free…the cost is our time and our mental health. Nothing is this world is for free.

We live in a world where people are supposedly rewarded for doing the right thing, being kind, making thoughtful work, and contributing something meaningful to society. Yet, we also live in a world where outrage travels faster than nuance and an entire career can be made off of a single post. We have all watched the internet reward behavior that would get you punched in reality. There’s something distant about the internet and yet we allow it into our home everyday. The cost for the internet is our mental health and we know it. We’re all in a toxic co-dependent relationship with the internet.

There’s also something fascinating about the relationship between social media creators and actors. Influencers want to act, actors want the audience that influencers have, studios want to know how many people will click on something before they have even watched it, and everyone is trying to figure out what the future of entertainment looks like. We are all in this strange dance together. And here’s an insider tip for you…no one is content with where they are in the dance. Everyone thinks the grass is greener.

I have made projects because I believed in them before there was any guarantee that anyone else would. I’ve made projects that I really thought, “this is the one!” and…it simply wasn’t. You literally don’t know what’s going to be the thing that lands you up the ladder of success. Some of you already know this…I made my Mom an internet celebrity for awhile. She became known as “Diva Mom” on Tik-Tok and she has been quoted on Heated Rivalry’s social media. That stupid little post gained me several thousand followers and has been watched over 3 million times. What?!

This project would not have come together in the same way without the people helping bring it to life behind the scenes. Julia Linger came on board as our casting director and producer, helping us get this fantastic cast together and turn the idea into something we could actually make. Bringing together people with different creative strengths and online audiences was a huge part of the original vision, and having Julia help make those connections has been instrumental in getting us here. Maggie Chieffo is also coming in to help get the story out into the world, because making a film is one thing, but finding the audience who will watch it is an entirely different adventure. Yes, it’s going on YouTube…but I want my darling cast to get opportunities from this project. I’m tired of my friends not getting their flowers.

Our cast includes Caroline Abbott, Tyler Bender, Allison Dayne (me), Heb Murphy, Adam S. Collins, Bess Jane, Remy Kassimir, and Dalia Chavez. Caroline wrote Viral, Braden directed it and I produced while taking on the role of a complicated woman. Everyone brings something different to the project, and that is exactly what I hoped would happen when I first pitched the idea. I wanted a group of people who could bring their own voices and experiences to a story about the world they are already navigating every day.

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For those of you who would like to follow the cast and see more of the people involved, here are their social accounts:

Adam S. Collins
Instagram: @adam.s.collins
TikTok: @adam.s.collins
Adam has approximately 1 million Instagram followers and around 849,000 TikTok followers. His online work includes entertainment and creator content.

Tyler Bender
Instagram and TikTok: @tylerbenderr
YouTube: @tylerbenderr
Tyler has approximately 261,000 Instagram followers, 590,000 TikTok followers, and 285,000 YouTube subscribers. She is known for satirical character work and sharp commentary on diet culture, family dynamics, and social expectations.

Heb Murphy
Instagram: @hebontheweb
YouTube: Heb On The Web
Heb has approximately 228,000 Instagram followers. Their online work includes entertainment, storytelling, pop culture, and personal narratives. Here is their link tree as well - Heb On The Web Linktree.

Bess Jane
TikTok: @itsbessjane
Other links: Bess Jane Linktree
Bess has approximately 224,000 TikTok followers. She is an LA-based actress and content creator.

Caroline Abbott Instagram: @jumpscarefilm
Caroline Abbott posts every single day a fun fact about a horror movie. She’s known for comedy, horror and genre-bending filmmaking.

Remy Kassimir Instagram: @remykassimir
Remy Kassimir is a stand up comedian, actor, and host of the Cosmopolitan Sexcellence award winning comedy and sex podcast "How C*m" which she started in order to have her first orgasm, and has now has inspired people globally to have their own through over 100K monthly downloads.

Dalia Chavez Instagram: @daliaelichavez
She shares sketch comedy content in the form of skits and POVs that are inspired by her daily life. She also shares vlogs. She has more than 600,000 followers.

And, of course, me, Allison Dayne.

This is a going to be a film that challenges the internet and why we celebrate attention. We’ve all decided attention is the key to success in our industry…what are you willing to do to get that attention? And is it worth the cost?

And if you have ever wondered what happens when the pursuit of attention becomes a nightmare, well, we made a movie about it. Viral will be coming your way in around three weeks. When that goes live…I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Oh! One more thing…I’m performing this Friday in the viral sensation comedy show titled, “ABOUT LAST NIGHT!” If you can come…please do!

ABOUT LAST NIGHT INFO -

A handful of LA locals share their worst dating and hookup stories while a live musician turns the stories into songs after.

Great dates get a text back. But bad dates? Those are worth sharing. About Last Night is a live storytelling show where locals take the stage to spill their most unforgettable dating and hookup disasters; awkward, hilarious, and painfully real. Since 2016, the show has entertained thousands across multiple cities throughout the U.S., turning cringe-worthy moments into can’t-miss nights of comedy, connection, and crowd-fueled catharsis. Featuring live music by Jimmy Berry.

TICKETS FOR ABOUT LAST NIGHT

Allison Dayne is a Los Angeles-based Equity actor, writer, and comedian whose work spans film, theater, and stand-up. She wrote and starred in the award-winning short film A King’s Curtain, a love letter to daughters and fathers, featuring Stephen McKinley Henderson, Austin Pendleton, Veanne Cox, Charles E. Gerber, and Sarah Spring. The film won Best Film at multiple festivals, including LA Film Shorts International Film Festival, Burbank International Film Festival, Phoenix Film Festival, and AMT International New York Film Festival. Allison also received Best Actress recognition at multiple film festivals for her work in the film.

Allison recently sold out her live taping of Confessions of a Sugar Baby at The Crow Comedy in Los Angeles, a hilarious and deeply personal one-woman show based on her true story of navigating a medical crisis without health insurance and turning to sugar dating to pay her medical bills. Blending comedy, storytelling, and the absurd realities of the American healthcare system, the show is now on a journey toward its next chapter, with Allison preparing to bring it to New York City while developing opportunities to take her stand-up and storytelling performances across the country.

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I’m still recovering mentally and emotionally from the buildup of making this show happen. I’m already on another film set for my next project I produced and star in called, “VIRAL”…which you’ll be seeing in three weeks on YouTube. Be on the lookout for that. You’ll see many familiar faces in this project. I know this is when you’re supposed to sit back and enjoy your accomplishments…but I've still got more to make and more to do. I’ve also been terrible on writing my Substacks and I apologize for that.

But Allison! How did the show do?! Welp…I performed both nights and each audience was absolutely spectacular. Cameron Lopez, my director, introduced the show and we were off to the races. The opening night my little brother was in the audience and I was incredibly nervous to have him there. It’s such a personal story and I honestly hate knowing what audience members are around. Whenever I’m in a show I tell everyone to not tell me when they are coming. It feels like a bad omen. However, my brother is a doctor and flew from Richmond, VA, to see this show. I had to know when he was going to be there. When the show ended and I received a standing ovation (wow!) he found me and cried from pride and awe. What a gift. Making a show as personal as this one…you forget that everyone can relate.

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The second night, Heb from “hebontheweb” even wrote an original song to introduce the play, which was such a special addition to the whole thing. Heb is also a very dear friend and having incredibly talented and generous friends makes the world go round. We had pictures of my surgeries throughout the space, journal entries from my adventure, props, a picture area and all these little pieces of the Confessions of a Sugar Baby story surrounding the audience. The goal was to show people the world of what it’s like living with a terminal/chronic disease. Courtney Fortner, a long time friend, dressed as a nurse and introduced the audience to the space. HOW FUN! I want my audience to have a good time. They were brave enough to guy a ticket (in this economy), put on pants, give several hours to the day…and pray I don’t suck. The least I can do it ensure they get a welcome drink, treats and a good show.

(Below is a cellphone recording from the audience member Erik Brown of He’s performance. Enjoy!)

For marketing I now get to say this show SOLD OUT. On every poster, pitch and more…that’s the truth. For being in Los Angeles for two years I was able to sell out a widely respected and known venue. Now I have meetings next week to figure out how we raise funds for a television pilot that we can then show to studios, and a lot of people have been asking for the taping. My producer Maggie Chieffo is mapping out the social media campaign to push this thing forward, and we have a live taping that can actually be sent around to people. We are now being asked when we are remounting the show again in Los Angeles so we can get the show ready for another round of campaigning, and people are asking when we are bringing it to another venue. We are also figuring out what it could look like to eventually bring the show to New York City. And that is a very strange place to be because I remember when I was just trying to convince people that this was a show worth seeing, and now people are asking me when they can see it again.

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I’m always terrified about putting money into my art because what if it doesn’t work out? What if I spend the money and nobody comes? It’s one thing to audition and not get the role…it’s another to say “I’m eating peanut butter for a month to afford my show.” However, having skin in the game keeps you in the game. I do believe showing you’re about your art and putting your own money in…forces you to work more. Does that make any sense? It’s almost like…being an artist is already a risk. Lord! Is it a risk! To add financial risk on top it…wowza…you getter be worth your salt. What if I make the thing and nobody cares? We all have to pay for rent, groceries, life and whatever else may come up…and you want to be brave enough to put on a show!?

I wanted to share with you all how I did it because I absolutely hate reading about someone’s journey without knowing the literal step by step of how they afforded something. I read a lot of autobiographical books and stories about people making their dreams happen and they always seem to skip over the “brass tacks” of it all. They tell you about the success, the premiere, the big break, the beautiful final product, but they don’t always tell you how the hell they paid for the thing. And honestly, when they leave that part out, it can start to feel more like a vanity project than a helpful guide for people who are trying to figure out how to make their own thing happen. So! Let’s get into it.

The Crow charged me $2,412.00 for both nights. This was with a friends and family discount and having the space dedicated to the show because we changed up the chairs and made the space feel like Confessions of a Sugar Baby, with pictures from the story, props and everything we needed to make the room feel like an actual experience. That price also included the staff and a welcome drink that was sparkling wine with grenadine and a cherry that we called a pulmonary embolism. Cute and disgusting... like me. The props all together were around $150. We also set aside several chairs for industry and complimentary tickets, so we lost out on some ticket sales for those seats, but that is always to be expected. You need your friends and loved ones to come support you…and ya need the connected people to help push it to the next level. It’s a wild recipe honestly to have a good audience. Since the show sold out both nights, I made close to $1,300 from ticket sales. The recording and audio for the live taping cost me $700.00.

Now the real question is, Allison, how did you afford the venue while you’re balancing out life and all the expenses that go into this show? Well, my friends, as you know, I went to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and worked my ass off taping over 40 shows in two weeks and got paid for it. So I was sent an advance of my Fringe money, and that immediately paid for the event. I was able to afford going to the Fringe Festival in Scotland because my found footage horror film Lock Your Doors won third place in the ReelShorts competition, and I used that competition money to pay for an Airbnb to have reserved for the entire month in Scotland. I also thought I was going to be putting up my show there, but because Confessions of a Sugar Baby didn’t have the “proof in the pudding,” as they say, that my show was good and that I was talented, a lot of venues didn’t want to secure me a slot. No shame on them, though. They want the artist to have a good experience and they want the artist to sell tickets. They don’t know me. They don’t know my audience. They don’t know if the show works. I didn’t have the proof yet. But now I have all of it. So don’t count the venue charges because that money was never “mine” in my head. I made basically 600.00 for the two nights of performing. You may gasp and say, “what a waste!” I need you to understand that from doing all of this I have gained the respect of well known performers, producers, agents and managers who have all entered my inbox. You HAVE to see that 600.00 as a thank you to my past self. Thank you for not giving up.

Now I have audience reactions. I have interviews on camera. I have proof that I can sell out a venue. I have a live taping that is being sent out to a rolodex of contacts in Los Angeles. I have my beautiful and talented producer Maggie Chieffo mapping out the social media campaign. My team is meeting with several people for the next steps. We are now being asked to remount the show in Los Angeles and we are figuring out a run for it to be in New York City. None of that would have happened if I had just accepted that Fringe said no to me the first go around. I made a found footage horror film and won a competition that gave me money to go to the Fringe, and instead of canceling my Airbnb because I was sad they didn’t accept my show, I went with another director of photography to work and network and make money and see shows. I used those funds to get this show made. And guess what? People were amazed. People love my show. I love my show. I love my community I’ve built. I protect my tribe.

Maureen Stapleton, an highly respected and beloved actor, once said, “Actors are a much hardier breed than other people. We have to be as clever as rats to survive.” This is true.

I feel like there is no word for what I accomplished to get this done except the word shrewd. The word itself means sharp powers of judgment and clever resourcefulness. A shrewd negotiator gets exactly what they want by being incredibly smart and observant, not by being malicious. Which I find hilarious when you think of the Shakespeare title The Taming of the Shrew. It means they were trying to tame a woman who knows how to make things move forward in her best interest. The industry is always going to try to tame a shrew and make them try to get smaller. I refuse. I know this journey is going to keep going, and I know there is still a long way to go, but I also know that something has changed because now I have proof. I have proof that people will come. I have proof that people will buy tickets. I have proof that people will laugh and listen and connect with this story. I have proof that I can put something into a room and make people care about it. I have proof that I’m as clever as a shrewd rat. I don’t have any nepotism, insanely wealthy family to allow me to live rent free in LA or a genie I can wish to. I have been doing this all thanks to being a clever girl and finding GOOD people in this world. GOOD and CLEVER belong together.

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And I think that is what I really wanted to tell you all with this update. Not just that the show sold out, although HOLY SHIT, THE SHOW SOLD OUT, but that this is what it actually looked like to get here. It was not one giant check that appeared from nowhere. It was a horror film competition. It was an Airbnb in Scotland. It was saying yes to filming forty shows when my own show wasn’t accepted. It was working. It was networking. It was taking money from one project and putting it into another. It was being terrified that the money would be wasted and doing it anyway. It was finding people who believed in the show and getting them into the room. It was putting my surgeries and my journals and my story all over a venue and hoping strangers would connect with it. And people did show up. People I love, respect and admired showed up. People I've never met before came. People who connected to it came. The more specific and personal the story…the more universal.

You have all been such loyal readers through this entire journey, and now I can get back to weekly Substacks for you all. I also want you all to know that you helped me.

You have followed this story, listened to me talk about the show, watched me prepare for it, watched me disappear into Edinburgh and then come back and throw myself into rehearsals, and you have been here while I have tried to figure out how to make this thing real. I am incredibly grateful for that. I don’t know exactly where this goes next, but I know I’m not done. This ain’t over until it’s over. I’m not stopping until I get that limited series for this show. I’m on a mission.

And for the people wondering how much effort is put into something like this…. a lot. Cameron Lopez came to my house to rehearse and help me write and organize the show for weeks before the taping. He is an excellent director and there’s a reason he is one of the most booked out people in Los Angeles. Caroline Abbott stage managed the show and organized the music cues and ensuring the space was equipped correctly. Braden McClain was the director photography for the taping and made it look STUNNING. Kelsey Egger helped create a new website and make the space glorious. The Crow allowed me to rent the venue and gave me a discount in support. Julia Linger was our public relations and got the word out to the city. Heb created a song and opened the show. Courtney Fortner dressed up as a nurse and made the show glow. I have audience participation and three brave men became my Sugar Daddies both nights. Brave young men. It takes a village to raise a show. It takes a village.

And finally, I know many of you don’t live in Los Angeles or New York City and I have been getting asked for the taping, so if any of you are interested in getting a private link to the taping, let me know.

I’m sure I can figure out a way because I know many of you don’t live in Los Angeles or NYC, and I would be honored to show it to you. You were here before there was proof. You read about this when it was still just an idea. You watched me try to make it happen. So now that I actually have the thing, I would love for you to see it too.

And maybe that is the most important part of all of this. I didn’t wait for someone to tell me I was allowed to make it. I figured out how to make it happen with what I had, and then I made people believe in it by putting it in front of them. So here we go. This is the start.

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Allison Dayne is a Los Angeles-based Equity actor, writer, and comedian. She wrote and stars in the upcoming short film A King’s Curtain, which will be released this year. The film features a cast that includes Austin Pendleton, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Veanne Cox. A King’s Curtain just won BEST DRAMA at the LA FILM SHORTS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL and BURBANK INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL as well as AMT INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL.

She recently performed at the sold out show Baby Bumps at Crow Comedy in Los Angeles. She is currently training at both the Groundlings program and Upright Citizens Brigade, continuing to develop her skills in comedy and improvisation. She previously studied at Second City and has modeled across the country.

Her work spans film, theater, and comedy, with a focus on creating original content and performing across multiple platforms.

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I haven’t been around for a while and I do apologize, but I was in Edinburgh, Scotland filming at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Now then, you’re a reader of mine which means you have excellent taste…but I realize many of you probably don’t even know what the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is. Why would you?! Your life is far too busy and chaotic to know everything at all times. Let me please give you a brief history lesson on a magical tradition in my art form.

The Edinburgh Fringe Festival started in 1947 to help bring peace and world unity after World War II. The world was in a terrible mental place and everyone was divided. No one knew how to recover or how to get “back to normal”. Well! A group of artists decided the best way to bring people together and find peace was through the arts. Sounds nice right? Yes…and no. Because the festival had a strict and specific curation of the arts several theater companies were left out. They were on the “fringes” of society. Get it? You’re smart. So several theater companies still came and performed around the city. This was the birth of the fringe festival. A fringe festival probably happens near where you live every year. Some shows are amazing and some aren’t…but the point is art is being made. This festival is now the WORLDS LARGEST THEATER FESTIVAL.

Imagine a city of theater, clowns, comedians, acrobats, painters, readers, slam poetry, musicals, dancers or whatever you declare is art happening for a month. Artists from around the world attend to show you shows to challenge, inspire and make a positive change in the world. Sounds magical right?! It’s a place where artistic gatekeepers are gone. The Fringe Society eventually formed in 1958 to keep the spirit of art alive. The whole city becomes a stage. If you happened to see the limited series Baby Reindeer by Richard Gadd he has a few episodes based on his experience at the Fringe Festival. The spirit of the these artists is really, “Fine. I’ll do it myself.”

This is a place where if you have a great show it can be the beginning of an excellent creative journey.

So! Now we know what the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is…why the hell was I there? I wasn’t performing. Not this year. I pray and hope to do it next year. I’m currently working with my producer and team to figure out how to get Confessions of a Sugar Baby there. I was there filming shows, networking and eating so much food. Our setup was an FX6 and two Osmo cameras. Braden McClain who was the director of photography for PBS for several years and a collaborator on many of my projects agreed to my insane idea. I was at the fringe for two weeks and we filmed over 40 shows. That’s a lot. I saw clown acts, acrobats, comedians, plays, one person shows and musicals. I was on the close-up camera. Since I’m an artist myself I know the angles an actor dreams to have and I’m happy to inform you that I nailed it.

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There are flyers everywhere, shows in tiny rooms, shows in enormous rooms, shows in basements, shows in churches, shows in pubs, shows in places where I still genuinely do not understand how a theater was legally able to exist, and everywhere you look someone is trying to convince you to come see something they made. Trying to explain the venues feels like the beginning of a Dr. Seuss book…Red venue, blue venue, big venue, black venue…and a venue is a venue no matter how small.

Everyone wants their show to be successful, obviously, because artists are still human beings who have to eat and pay rent. But the Fringe is not built around the idea that everything has to become a television show or a Broadway transfer or a multimillion-dollar franchise. And there was no service or barely any working Wi-Fi while there. Social media didn’t matter. It was all based on if the show was good. If the show was worth peoples time. It’s all word of mouth and how hard you can hustle for your show. It was incredibly refreshing.

I filmed a show called the 5 MISTAKES THAT CHANGED HISTORY. It was a show created by Paul Coulter. He started his show several years ago in a storage bin container venue (remember how I told you the variety of venues?) He now sells out the entire festival in a much larger venue. He is from Australia and performs around the world. His show teaches you 5 mistakes that happened in history that well…changed it. You got that premise from the title but it’s a very clever and funny show. Imagine an Australian John Oliver but also family friendly.

I filmed a show with Viggo Venn. He won Britain’s Got Talent! Woot woot. He performs in the famous STAMPTOWN show but also has a solo performance. This man performed his solo act right before performs in STAMPTOWN. That means Mr. Venn performs non-stop for 3 hours every single night for a month. Wild! Viggo’s show was incredibly funny and based on physical clown comedy. If you ever see him performing in your area….go! (In a world becoming less about people and more about computers I recommend theater to help in general.)

I saw my friend Michelle Pokopac’s Fringe directorial debut. It was written and performed by Kevin Qian who is on the journey of being a financial advisor to performers. The show was about growing up privileged and Asian in America. He reflects back on private schools, parents love language and milk. Yes. Milk. I was so proud of her. We’ve known each other since my chaotic days in Atlanta, GA. See? The world is big and small in this industry.

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Somewhere in the middle of all of that, I started thinking about Confessions of a Sugar Baby, which seems like a weird conclusion to reach while standing in Edinburgh watching clown shows, but the more I thought about it, the more it made perfect sense. Because Sugar Baby is, at its heart, is about taking a leap of faith. It began with me having an experience and writing about it. It wasn’t until I shared my journey with other artists that I realized it should be told to the public. I’ve been an actor my entire life. My parent can attest to this. Thank GOD they believed in me. I don’t know what my life would be without my art.

That is what Edinburgh made me understand in a way I do not think I had fully understood before. We spend so much time about the results we forget the journey. Also? I realized not everyone has the same dream. Everyone has a very different dream because that is for them. I always ask people, “What is your dream?” It helps me know a person very quickly. I heard about people who wanted to open a theater, perform in NYC (notice not say Broadway but just NYC), make a podcast, get on a TV show or just make good art. No one stated, “I wanted to make a dark humored TV show and then steal your acting jobs Allison!” No one said that. They all had what they wanted to do. I write this to say…if you’re an actor please know…no one is coming after YOUR dream. (Leave a comment on what your dream is!)

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The Fringe has also been the birthplace of some amazing artists and that can be hard to “let go” of. If that makes any sense. For example! Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s masterpiece Fleabag was a one person show at the Fringe festival. Did she know it would become a limited series? I highly doubt it. Richard Gadd’s Baby Reindeer became a limited series after he put together his two one person acts “Monkey See Monkey Do” and “Baby Reindeer”. John Oliver got his start at the fringe. The list can go on and on. Saying that you did the Fringe and did well is a feat of excellence. People go back every year and gain a cult following.

And that is where Sugar Baby suddenly felt different to me when I was in Edinburgh. I also believe it’s because I’m a highly ambitious person and according to my friends an enneagram 8 (The Challenger) that I haven’t allowed myself to just accept what can be. I’ve had meeting with my dream agency. I’ve had meetings with producers who’ve worked with Amy Poehler and my idols. I’m allowed to just do what I do best. I am allowed to get onstage because I think the story is funny and uncomfortable and complicated and worth discussing. I am allowed to film it because I want there to be a record of it. I am allowed to be proud of the fact that something that once existed entirely in my head became something physical that another human being can sit in a room and experience.

The world can feel unbelievably divided, and I think sometimes we forget how powerful it is to simply gather people together around something they care about. The Fringe felt like proof that people still want to come together and tell stories to one another. I travel a lot. People love people.

And maybe that is what I want Confessions of a Sugar Baby to be more than anything else. Of course I want it to become something larger, because I have always wanted to make things that grow beyond me. That isn’t my job though. My job is to tell the truth. My job is to share. My job is to be brave.

That is what the Fringe reminded me of, and maybe that is why it affected me as much as it did. The entire festival exists because a handful of artists were not invited into someone else’s official program and decided that they were going to perform anyway. I’ve been obsessed with the concept of being “chosen”. To be cast by people who don’t know me but just like my art. I genuinely don’t think that business model in this industry exists anymore.

So perhaps that is what I am going to take back with me as I prepare for Confessions of a Sugar Baby. I do not need to know exactly what happens after the curtain closes. I don’t know what the next step will be. I know what I hope for. I know I have to keep going.

I spent two weeks in Edinburgh filming more than 40 shows, watching artists from around the world create things that mattered deeply to them, and I think I came home with something more valuable than the footage. I came back with a spunk in my step and a knowing in my soul….I’m not alone in wanting the world to be filled with art.

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Allison Dayne is a Los Angeles-based Equity actor, writer, and comedian. She wrote and stars in the upcoming short film A King’s Curtain, which will be released this year. The film features a cast that includes Austin Pendleton, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Veanne Cox. A King’s Curtain just won BEST DRAMA at the LA FILM SHORTS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL and BURBANK INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL as well as AMT INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL.

She recently performed at the sold out show Baby Bumps at Crow Comedy in Los Angeles. She is currently training at both the Groundlings program and Upright Citizens Brigade, continuing to develop her skills in comedy and improvisation. She previously studied at Second City and has modeled across the country.

Her work spans film, theater, and comedy, with a focus on creating original content and performing across multiple platforms.

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I’m asked this question pretty often. It’s an impossible question. As someone who has worked with actors who’ve won Oscars, Tonys or landed big roles in general…I’m asked. People usually don’t realize what I’ve done until they’ve had a conversation with me; and I get that. I’m not FAMOUS. I’m not incredibly KNOWN. You Google me and I’ll come up…but I’m not a household name (YET). However! I’m asked! I’m asked, “How do you cast someone?!” This is usually by either parents who want their kids to attain their dreams or actors who want to work with me.

A lot of people wonder if you need to have a blood sacrifice, lose thirty more pounds or be born into a wealthy family. I won’t lie the wealthy family part helps. There’s no lie that wealth helps this career. BUT DON’T GET DISCOURAGED! The thing I look for in any project is something you can control. If you’re a creative person…please listen to me. The thing that will make you CASTABLE into CASHABLE is easily. It’s something you know how to do. It’s something in your control. Are you ready?

The way to be involved in a project of any size is easy - BE EASY TO WORK WITH.

There. That’s the secret. That’s all there is to it. Now slam this phone, laptop or I-pad down…and run free. You’re off to the races. You can’t be blocked!

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I really do wish it was that easy. On the other hand if it was that easy everyone would do it. We’ve all heard that before. I wanted to write about this because there’s a lot of negative confusion in the industry right now. Social media has taken over. In the United States those numbers matter. Outside of the country it’s genuinely not as important…it’s about other things. But do you know how many people LOSE a job? By not being easy to work with.

So! Let’s focus in on the things you can control. Everything outside of the things you can control is not even worth talking about.

THINGS YOU CAN CONTROL -

• LINES MEMORIZES. (You’d be surprised.)

• POSITIVE ENERGY/ATTITUDE

• ARRIVE EARLY

• OFFER GREAT IDEAS

• BE A TEAM PLAYER

Each of those things will make you incredible. Word travels fast in this big/small city. The industry is big and small at the same time. Everyone knows everyone and knows no one at the same time. If you show up to a project with those things…directors and producers will never forget. People never remember what you said. They only remember how you made them FEEL. I remember actors from years ago who auditioned for me who were amazing and offered something spectacular…and they just didn’t work for that specific project. We remember the good ones. We always do. We remember the people who made the project easier and run smoothly.

This is also, somehow, Week 10 of preparing Confessions of a Sugar Baby, which means I have now spent approximately ten weeks trying to scream into the void about this show. While simultaneously producing, performing, writing, directing other things, developing films, working on content, meeting people, answering emails, and generally keeping my hands in as many pots as possible.

And now I am also helping cast a movie! Woot woot. Which has made me think about casting and how frustrating and important it is.

Because actors are constantly asking: How do I get cast? How do I get someone to see me? How do I get in the room? How do I get people to take a chance on me? What makes someone memorable? What makes someone bookable? Will it ever happen?

Be good at your job, obviously. Be talented. Be prepared. Know your lines. Show up. Have a point of view. Have something interesting about you. But if you want to become someone people actively want to cast again, one of the most powerful things you can do is be the person everyone remembers as, “Oh my God, I loved working with them.” Because something WILL always go wrong.

My last film I directed, “JUMPSCARE!” was written by the incredibly talented Caroline Abbott and it’s off to the film festival races. This was a horror-comedy short film. We even had the musician Bipolar Sunshine write an original song for the project.

JUMPSCARE WEBSITE

Point being - this film was created in Erie, PA. It was cold. It was super duper cold. Did this cast complain? No. We ensured they were warm. We had night shoots. Were they prepared? Yes. Will I work with all these actors and creatives again? YES. Now then…why choose that ensemble? Word of mouth and seeing how those creatives moved in other projects. I’ve worked with all these people before in other ways. Some in classes…some in films…some in social media ideas. If they were consistently ready to go, I wanted them to be in my film. Film sets move fast. Everything is on the clock. We want to be able to move on to the next shot quickly and efficiently. All of these actors deserve the attention that is coming their way.

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Making a movie is basically an elaborate exercise in discovering new and creative ways that things can go wrong. Being easy to work with does not mean having no opinions. It doesn’t mean saying yes to everything. It doesn’t mean allowing people to treat you badly. It means you know how to collaborate. Great actors are usually great friends, lovers or leaders. I don’t make the rules. It’s just because great actors are great at being present in the moment and listening to a person. A great listener is a great actor. They just happen to be insanely ambitious as well.

It’s like you’re running for president. Could I get a beer with you? Could I trust you to get the job done? Do I believe you? This is the world we live in. This is why networking matters and getting yourself out there is so important. You never know who is going to be the next BIG thing tomorrow.

To be cast means someone is trusting you. Are you a trustworthy person? Can someone trust you with their money, hopes and dreams?

So what did we learn? We learned that we need to be:

• Prepared

• Didn’t complain when stuff changed

• You were kind

• You knew your lines

• You knew when to ask for help

• You made the project easier by being around

• You knew your role and made it better

Because people don’t see how hard it is to get the role. They just don’t. All people see is the credit and the premiere. You got this! Please don’t give up. I really would love to see you perform. If you’re an actor and have a reel I genuinely would love for you to leave a link to your demo reel in the comments.

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I know people casting all the time and it’s hard to find GOOD EASY PEOPLE. I know that seems crazy to say…but it’s true. There’s a lot of actors on the planet. There isn’t a lot of GOOD TALENTED EASY TO WORK WITH ACTORS. And how do you get into that mix? By focusing on the things you can control.

If you’re worried no one will discover you…I hope you discover yourself. I hope you make your own art. I hope you keep climbing the mountain. You want talented people. But you also want people you trust. And trust is built in the boring moments. It is built by answering the email, showing up and being prepared. I know you know how stupidly hard and annoying this career is. Why make it more difficult by being an asshole? Don’t do that to yourself. Please!

So anyways…how you get cast is by being easy to work with. This substack isn’t for the already famous, nepo-baby, social media savvy creators. It’s just not. It’s for the actors who weep at Chekhov and yearn for presence on camera. I see you. I can’t wait to work with you.

On another note - my show is selling. I had meetings with my producer and public relations team. We’re doing this thing. I’m telling this story…and I’m doing it while making other people laugh. Thank you again. And to everyone out there who has a dream…I can’t wait to see you get it.

P.S. A King’s Curtain keeps sweeping the festivals!

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Allison Dayne is a Los Angeles-based Equity actor, writer, and comedian. She wrote and stars in the upcoming short film A King’s Curtain, which will be released this year. The film features a cast that includes Austin Pendleton, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Veanne Cox. She won Best Actress at the Indie Short International Film Festival. A King’s Curtain just won BEST DRAMA at the LA FILM SHORTS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, MANHATTAN FILM FESTIVAL, BURBANK INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL as well as AMT INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL.

She recently performed at the sold out show Baby Bumps at Crow Comedy in Los Angeles. She is currently training at both the Groundlings program and Upright Citizens Brigade, continuing to develop her skills in comedy and improvisation. She previously studied at Second City and has modeled across the country.

Her work spans film, theater, and comedy, with a focus on creating original content and performing across multiple platforms.

IMDB

INSTAGRAM

TED TALK

TikTok

Voyage LA Article

I’ve been on probably the most intense bunny hole. I’ve been asking only the most intense questions, and, not surprisingly, I’ve been offending people. I now consider myself to be Alice in Baby Land. I thought appraising sugaring dating was bad. I thought criticizing the state of American healthcare was bad. I thought expressing the depths of my loneliness was spectacular! Here I am, at two a.m., lying in bed, trying to come up with the answer for the question I’ve been dying to know the answer for: What really is sex work?

No jokes, I actually don’t know. Is sex work literally having sex? What about getting someone to buy something just because you think they want to have sex with you? Is it selling a fantasy? Is it selling attention? In our society, if you say “sex sells,” you can literally sell anything. But no one ever tells you what sex actually sells. When it does sell, what are we selling? An object? An image? What are we really selling when sex sells?

When does it become a job to trade on your looks? And when does society get to start judging it? I keep pulling on this string, and for some reason all I’m getting is a really, really long string, like an entire unraveling sweater. I’m the matador lost in a sexy maze. (Sorry…I saw The Odyssey and Hadestown…it’s all Greek to me!)

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Maybe this all started years ago in my high school biology class with my teacher, Keith Barnes. One day he walked over to the window, opened it, and pointed outside toward the park. “What do you all see?” he asked. We were all trying to be the good students, throwing out answers we thought he wanted to hear. Remember when it felt amazing to get the right answer? He looked at all of us and said, “Wrong. All I see is sex.”

We were laughing and shocked. First off…our teacher said sex! Second off…what is this mad man talking about?

Once we stopped laughing, he explained what he meant. Evolution!! Pollination! Reproduction! SEX! POP! LIPSCHITZ! The birds and the bees. The incredible story of pollination, evolution and how we all came to be. He went on about how we are all deeply needing the same thing. We want sex and we want power. The entire point of biology is survival. He was talking about us….us as a society…not my high school class. I’ll work on my wording of this topic in the future.

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I haven’t thought about his speech in a while. I also haven’t been quizzed on how trees leaves help pollinate the world. Because of Confessions of a Sugar Baby I want to ask you…when does sex work become sex work? Don’t you think it’s hard to ignore that almost every opportunity comes from class, beauty, money or…sex?

Nobody LIKES to admit we’re all in this circus together.

We would all love to say, “Allison! You dumb slut! That’s just not true! I was tipped 25% extra by that old man because he loves my personality!”

I also think about my bartending journey. Every female waiter, bartender or sales clerk knows pigtails gets you more tips. When I wear my braided pigtails I’m treated kinder. I’m tipped more at my work. Women know these things. Pride goes away when rent is due.

Bottle service was even less subtle. Every shift it felt like the uniforms somehow lost another inch of fabric. Apparently inflation affects everything except skirts. The message wasn’t hidden. The club wasn’t pretending people were buying overpriced vodka because the acoustics were incredible. We all understood the assignment. The image was part of the product. My body wasn’t the product, exactly, but pretending it wasn’t helping sell the experience would have been ridiculous. We all knew why the uniforms looked the way they did, just like we all knew why certain girls got certain sections on certain nights. It wasn’t meritocracy. It was marketing. It was sex work.

Then I read an article by Alan Ritchson, the star of Reacher, where he described modeling as “legalized sex trafficking.” I don’t know how to feel about that phrasing…but I’m not one to dismiss anyones truth. I wonder if every interaction when comes to transactions. We want to sell. We want to buy. Boss wants pretty girls in front. Companies want to sell…and sex sells.

Another aspect of sex marketing I deal with is headshots. I’ve spent a lot of money on them. I’ve spent a lot of money on this lifestyle. You get around 30 seconds to get someone’s attention. You know what gets someone’s attention? Charisma? The look? Energy? Cheek bones? I mean…yes…but I remember being in a director workshop. I attended a workshop as the ONLY female director and the “fancy” director (I won’t say his name) said to us all, “You need to ask yourself if you would fuck your lead. That’s how you sell!” I remember raising my hand and saying, “Does anyone want to fuck you?” The workshop laughed. I stayed still. He asked who I was. I said, “I’m the only woman in this room. That’s all you need to know.” I don’t know if that random story supports my question to you. If anything it lets you know I’m used to being the only woman in a room of men and don’t worry I don’t let any of that shit slide.

The longer I’m alive the longer I believe the phrase, “sex sells” is true for a certain demographic. It’s not true on all aspects of the human condition. Sex sells for certain people. I want to sell.

That’s what has surprised me the most while preparing this show. I thought Confessions of a Sugar Baby was going to force me to ask difficult questions about one very specific world. Instead, it keeps making me look at every job I’ve ever had and wonder how much of it depended on being attractive, approachable, charming, funny, feminine, desirable, or simply sellable. That’s why this story has become so much bigger than sugar dating! It isn’t really about one arrangement between two people. It’s about the invisible transactions we make every. single. day.

I’m still not sure where the line is. I don’t know if anyone does! I’m not trying to flatten every profession into the same moral category because they obviously aren’t the same. I just want to hear from other people. Is flirting with a man sex work? Is it just expected? Is using a hot woman in marketing sex work?

I also think we’ve become very good at pretending this doesn’t exist or has nothing to do with them. We celebrate it when it’s called branding, marketing, entertainment, or influencing, but we recoil when it’s called sex work. Maybe the difference is obvious. Maybe it isn’t. I honestly haven’t decided yet. Or is a spade a spade.

On a different note I promise I’m working on my social media game. It’ll get better. I just hate it…but hey…sex sells.

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Allison Dayne is a Los Angeles-based Equity actor, writer, and comedian. She wrote and stars in the upcoming short film A King’s Curtain, which will be released this year. The film features a cast that includes Austin Pendleton, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Veanne Cox. She won Best Actress at the Indie Short International Film Festival. A King’s Curtain just won BEST DRAMA at the LA FILM SHORTS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, MANHATTAN FILM FESTIVAL, BURBANK INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL as well as AMT INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL.

She recently performed at the sold out show Baby Bumps at Crow Comedy in Los Angeles. She is currently training at both the Groundlings program and Upright Citizens Brigade, continuing to develop her skills in comedy and improvisation. She previously studied at Second City and has modeled across the country.

Her work spans film, theater, and comedy, with a focus on creating original content and performing across multiple platforms.

IMDB

INSTAGRAM

TED TALK

TikTok

Voyage LA Article

I don’t hate football (soccer). In fact, I think the athleticism is nothing short of extraordinary. I’m already impressed when someone can do that knee thing where they keep hitting the ball…you know what I’m talking about.

Watching someone launch a ball halfway across a field, curve it around a wall of defenders, and land it perfectly in the back of the net is a level of coordination I simply do not possess. I can’t bend it like Beckham. I can’t even consistently kick a soccer ball in the direction I intended. I’m not a sorry gal. I loved the film She’s the Man though…does that count? (Fun fact It’s a modern re-telling of a Shakespeare play. I can hear your deep sighs from here.)

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I love watching people become the very best in the world at something. There is something deeply human about excellence. It’s why we watch the Olympics. It’s why stadiums fill. It’s why millions of people gather in bars, living rooms, and public squares wearing the same jersey, hugging complete strangers after a goal. We all want to belong to something bigger than ourselves. We all love a team!

So this isn’t me saying people shouldn’t enjoy the World Cup. I’m actually glad they do. What I hate is the sinking feeling I get every four years when someone asks me if I’ve been watching. Because I know exactly what’s about to happen. “I haven’t really been following it.” “What? Allison…you need to stop reading and start living!” And then I’m faced with a choice. Do I smile politely and change the subject? Or do I become the woman who ruins happy hour? Unfortunately, I usually become the second one.

Not because I enjoy being a downer…but because I can’t turn my brain off on the bigger picture of society. I know…it’s annoying.

One of the most widely cited studies on domestic abuse during major football tournaments came from Lancaster University. Researchers examined police reports across multiple FIFA World Cups and found that reports of domestic abuse increased by 26% when England won or drew a match and by 38% when England lost. Researchers are careful to point out that football doesn’t cause domestic violence. Violent people cause domestic violence. But major sporting events can create conditions: heightened emotion, alcohol consumption, gambling losses, and existing patterns of coercive behavior that coincide with increases in reported abuse.

Lancaster University Article

Let me be clear! Football (soccer) doesn’t create abusers. It exposes them.

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I wish I didn’t know that. I really do. I wish I could just watch an incredible goal and think about nothing except how on earth someone managed to make a ball defy physics. I wish I didn’t google every single player to find out if they are a good person or not. I suppose…I really do care where my time and energy goes. If I’m going to cry and pray for you to win I need to know that you’re a good person. I want to know who is a “wife guy” and who should be in jail. I like getting the full picture to an athlete.

When I watch a huge sporting event like this…I wonder about what happens when the game ends. I think about who's walking on eggshells because their partner’s team lost. Who’s hoping the game goes into extra time because it delays the moment someone comes home angry. Who’s pretending to be asleep. Who’s quietly calculating whether tonight is going to be one of the bad nights.

That’s the thing about knowledge. Once you’ve been exposed to the truth…it’s hard to see past that. It’s hard for someone like me to see a big social event and think, “everything is perfect!” And before anyone accuses me of trying to cancel football, let me stop you there. I literally couldn’t. So don’t worry…your World Cup is fine. This isn’t about football (soccer). It’s about us.

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It’s about a culture that still teaches too many men that anger is easier than grief, rage is more acceptable than vulnerability, and silence is somehow stronger than asking for help. I don’t think we have a masculinity problem. I think we have a therapy problem.

Somewhere along the way, too many men were taught that the only acceptable emotions are happiness and anger. Everything else fear, rejection, heartbreak, loneliness, shame gets buried until it has nowhere left to go.

For most men, that pressure never turns into violence. Let’s be very clear about that. Most men are not abusive. I’m not for sweeping statements on genders. It comes down to the individual. Most men watching the World Cup are just... watching the World Cup.

But for the men who are already abusive, for the men who already use control and intimidation, moments of heightened emotion can become dangerous. That’s why this conversation matters. Not because I want to take away anyone’s joy. I just want everyone to survive someone else’s. I would like sporting events to not escalate larger societal issues. Is that so bad?

As I’ve been writing Confessions of a Sugar Baby, I’ve spent months reflecting on the men who have wandered into my life. (P.S. Were on week 8 on our journey and tickets have been selling!)

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I’ve met all sorts of men (and boys) in my life. The more stories I collect, the more convinced I become that we don’t just have a healthcare crisis or a loneliness crisis. We have an emotional literacy crisis. We are raising generations of people who know how to win, compete, provide, perform, and endure. But not how to ask for help. Not how to sit in grief. Not how to lose. Not how to hear the word “no.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sincerely asked someone, “what would make you fulfilled?” and people don’t have a clue.

Emotional intelligence isn’t weakness. It’s maintenance. We service our cars more often than we service our emotional lives, and then we’re surprised when everything breaks down. Speaking of which, Dad, I know you’re reading this and don’t worry I have my next oil change scheduled.

I don’t enjoy being the downer. I don’t enjoy bringing up domestic violence while everyone else is discussing goals, free kicks, and that super hot blonde player who is funny. I’d honestly love to know less.

But until the statistics change, until fewer women spend major sporting events wondering what version of their partner is coming home, I don’t know what else to tell you.

Maybe that’s what this week of Confessions of a Sugar Baby preparation has really been about. Remember that I’m a funny girl and love a good time….but I’ve been cursed with a humanitarian mind.

Week eight has reminded me that every story I’ve written, every man I’ve met, every date I’ve survived, every conversation I’ve had, keeps circling back to the same thing.

Healing isn’t optional. Ignoring pain doesn’t make it disappear. It just asks someone else to carry it. And usually, that someone is a woman.

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Allison Dayne is a Los Angeles-based Equity actor, writer, and comedian. She wrote and stars in the upcoming short film A King’s Curtain, which will be released this year. The film features a cast that includes Austin Pendleton, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Veanne Cox. She won Best Actress at the Indie Short International Film Festival. A King’s Curtain just won BEST DRAMA at the LA FILM SHORTS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, MANHATTAN FILM FESTIVAL, BURBANK INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL as well as AMT INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL.

She recently performed at the sold out show Baby Bumps at Crow Comedy in Los Angeles. She is currently training at both the Groundlings program and Upright Citizens Brigade, continuing to develop her skills in comedy and improvisation. She previously studied at Second City and has modeled across the country.

Her work spans film, theater, and comedy, with a focus on creating original content and performing across multiple platforms.

IMDB

INSTAGRAM

TED TALK

TikTok

Voyage LA Article

To be fair to my loyal readers (who I love and cherish and want to jump for joy over) this is week seven of Confessions of a Sugar Baby…but I need to tell you a story. This doesn’t involve the show but it’s needed that I tell a story on real life dating.

A girlfriend of mine was recently telling me about one of her dating experiences when this memory came flooding back into my brain. I hadn’t thought about it in a while; but suddenly I could remember every tiny detail. It’s funny how memories work. You forget entire relationships but somehow remember the man who said one weird joke.

This happened a while ago, so let’s call him Victus. Why Victus? Because victus is the Latin word for defeated. Fun fact for you. Use it next time you want to call someone a loser…their ears will perk up for you.

We met on Hinge. The conversations beforehand were perfectly pleasant. Nothing alarming. He seemed successful, educated, funny enough, and he suggested we meet at The Nice Guy in West Hollywood. Truly an excellent choice.

If you’ve never been, I highly recommend it. Walking in feels like you’ve accidentally wandered into old Hollywood. Everything is dimly lit, there are velvet booths tucked into corners, candles flickering on every table, music that’s just loud enough to make you lean in, and every person somehow looks effortlessly hotter than you. It’s the kind of restaurant where everyone looks like they have somewhere more important to be afterward. You half expect Frank Sinatra to walk through the door.

Whenever I go on a first date, I text my parents exactly where I’m going. Not because I’m particularly paranoid. Just because I’m a woman and unfortunately I could get attacked or murdered anywhere. The text usually says something like, “Going to The Nice Guy. His name is...” followed by my location. It’s my version of, “If I disappear, here’s a paper trail.” My parents, however, have a completely different response to these texts. Without fail, they’ll pull up the restaurant menu online. My dad will text, “Get the ribeye.” My mom will say, “The burrata looks incredible.” They are significantly more concerned with whether I’m ordering correctly than whether this man has potential to keep my attention.

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I got there about fifteen minutes early because I hate being late. I ordered myself a cocktail and sat at the bar. The hostesses were absolutely stunning. Their makeup was flawless. I’ve never really been a makeup girl. Mostly because if you’ve been around here for a while, you know I’m blind in my left eye. I notice little things like perfect winged eyeliner because, quite frankly, I think it’s wizardry. If I attempted that, one eye would be Cleopatra and the other would look like it lost a fight.

Victus walked in and immediately recognized me. He was taller than I expected, well dressed, confident, and greeted me warmly. We sat down, ordered drinks, and started the familiar first-date dance.

The questions on every date:

• Where are you from?

• How long have you been in LA?

• What do you do?

• What do your parents do? (Nepotism in question)

• Do you have siblings?

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The usual. At one point I glanced across the restaurant and faintly pointed my finger, “That’s Bill Nye the Science Guy.” I was genuinely delighted. Bill Nye! He was wearing a pink bow-tie and suspenders. Exactly what I wanted him to be wearing. Victus barely looked over. “Hm.” Then, almost seamlessly, the conversation returned to him. And stayed there. For nearly two hours I learned about the immense burden of being a millionaire. Apparently it’s very stressful. There were multiple homes. Investment properties. He had to explain taxes, money, stocks, business deals and whatever else he felt I needed to know. At the moment the only thing I needed to know was where the free bread was.

People asking him for advice because he was so financially successful. I don’t remember most of the specifics because after the fourth house my brain simply clocked out. I felt like I’d accidentally wandered onto the set of Succession, except no one was yelling creatively enough to make it entertaining. Every now and then he’d pause just long enough to ask me something before finding a way to circle the conversation back to himself. Then came the line. “I’ve been single forever,” he said. “I just don’t understand women. I don’t know why they don’t like me.”

I actually remember feeling sympathetic. Maybe he was just socially awkward. Maybe he worked too much. Maybe dating had been hard on him. I was actively trying to figure out what everyone else was missing. Then the waiter came over. He smiled and asked if we’d like to see the dessert menu. Now, I was full. The steak was incredible, and I was planning to politely decline dessert myself. Before I could even open my mouth, Victus lifted his hand directly into the waiter’s face like a crossing guard stopping traffic. “WOMEN DON’T NEED DESSERTS.”

Silence. (Fun Fact…women eat desserts. Women love desserts. Here’s a hot take! You shouldn’t make blank statements about what a gender is allowed to eat. I know…how insanely feminist of me.)

The waiter looked at me. I looked at the waiter. The waiter looked back at him. There it was. The answer to his earlier question. Call me Nancy Drew because I solved the mystery! I finally knew why women didn’t like him.

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I excused myself to the restroom because I needed a minute. My dad has this phrase he uses whenever I’m about to say something without thinking. He’ll look at me and say, “Don’t be a lovable asshole.” I was trying very hard not to become one.

To his credit, he paid for dinner. That was generous, and I appreciated it. Earlier I’d asked the waiter to box up the remaining half of my steak. Freelancers understand the joy of leftovers. That’s lunch tomorrow. Maybe dinner the next day if you’re strategic.

As we stood to leave I asked, “Oh! Where’s my steak?” “I took it.” Surely this was a joke. I laughed and reached for the bag. He pulled it behind himself like when a brother hides the TV remote. “I paid for dinner,” he explained matter-of-factly. “So I get anything that’s left over.” I had no response. I gave my tight grinch smile and nodded. I’m not going to make a scene when Bill Nye was around. He taught me how to make a volcano explode and I’m not going to disappoint him.

Victus had spent two hours explaining the complexity of managing multiple properties. And then took half of my steak. The math simply isn’t mathing. It wasn’t even about the steak anymore. It was the principle. It was the bizarre ownership mentality. I honestly think about that steak more often than I think about him.

He paid for valet, and we walked outside together. Then, standing next to me, he looked down and said, “Being tall must be hard as a girl.” I asked, “Why?” “Because everyone looks at you.” I shrugged. “I guess that’s why it’s a good thing I’m worth looking at.” He didn’t laugh. I thought that was a good line.

Instead he said, “That would bother me. I like people looking at me instead of my date.” I didn’t know how to respond. Sorry? Should I have apologized for existing at 6’? Should I have hunched over all evening to make him feel bigger? I would rather be accused of being a retired ballerina than have self-induced scoliosis.

I got in my car and he immediately asked when he could see me again. I passed his bar of acceptance…but did he pass mine?

As I drove home that night, I realized dating is one of the strangest experiences we willingly put ourselves through. Two complete strangers sit across from each other for two hours trying to figure out if there’s enough compatibility to build a life together. Sometimes it’s magical. Sometimes it’s awkward. Sometimes someone tells the waiter women don’t need dessert and steals your leftovers.

Dating is hard. People carry insecurities, expectations, past heartbreaks, and sometimes enormous egos into a restaurant and ask another human being to navigate all of it over cocktails/mocktails.

But if there’s one thing this date taught me, it’s this: I would rather stay single than make myself smaller for someone else’s comfort.

I’m not going to shrink because someone else needs to feel bigger. I’m certainly not going to develop terrible posture because someone can’t handle my height. Life has already asked me to overcome enough. I’m not adding a permanent hunch to the list.

I’ll keep showing up exactly as I am; heels, height, opinions, dessert orders and all. And next time... I’m keeping my damn steak.

As always…tell me your favorite or least favorite dating story…I’m all ears.

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P.S. CONFESSIONS OF A SUGAR BABY TICKETS ARE LIVE.

LINK TO TICKETS FOR LIVE TAPING

Allison Dayne is a Los Angeles-based Equity actor, writer, and comedian. She wrote and stars in the upcoming short film A King’s Curtain, which will be released this year. The film features a cast that includes Austin Pendleton, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Veanne Cox. She won Best Actress at the Indie Short International Film Festival. A King’s Curtain just won BEST DRAMA at the LA FILM SHORTS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, MANHATTAN FILM FESTIVAL, BURBANK INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL as well as AMT INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL.

She recently performed at the sold out show Baby Bumps at Crow Comedy in Los Angeles. She is currently training at both the Groundlings program and Upright Citizens Brigade, continuing to develop her skills in comedy and improvisation. She previously studied at Second City and has modeled across the country.

Her work spans film, theater, and comedy, with a focus on creating original content and performing across multiple platforms.

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Cassio in Othello got it right! All you have is reputation: "Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial." (PS. My favorite Shakespeare play.)

One day you’re standing next to someone in an acting class complaining about parking in Los Angeles, and six months later they’re staffed on a television show. Someone you met doing a random storytelling show suddenly becomes a producer. Someone who’s been grinding for fifteen years pops off overnight and now everyone is pretending they “came out of nowhere.” Someone else quits entirely and never returns to this circus life we all adore.

You just never know. Many of the most “talented” people I’ve seen in a class have now moved and found a different lifestyle. This life has and never will be about talent. It’s genuinely all about grit.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because there have been some really exciting developments with Confessions of a Sugar Baby. This is week six of Confessions of a Sugar Baby.

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I wanted to focus in on the HOW I got this team together. I listen to so many podcasts and read so many books to try and understand HOW someone to do the cool things they do.

Recently, a producer signed on to the project and is now seeing what agency would be interested in selling the scripted podcast version of the show. Which...what?! How exciting is that? She believes a scripted podcast version of the show will make it more likely to sell as a limited series. Which is amazing…and so wild that creators are now expected to do everything and anything besides making the f****ing show. I suppose we have to prove ourselves? Who knows.

Every time I say it out loud I have to stop myself from sounding too eager because I don’t want to jinx anything. Artists are incredibly superstitious people. We all pretend to be chill while secretly knocking on wood and refusing to celebrate until contracts are signed.

But here’s what keeps making me laugh. I didn’t meet her through some fancy networking event. I didn’t pitch her.I didn’t cold email her. I met her doing Storyectomy at The Crow Comedy. We started out as friends. That was it.

We’d tell stories, we’d laugh, we’d catch up. Then over time she became interested in my story and the play, and suddenly another part of our relationship emerged. She wanted to help produce the project. I would have never guessed that when we first met. The same thing happened with another producer who’s helping with the show. Storyectomy again. Honestly, is this becoming one giant advertisement for Storyectomy at The Crow Comedy directed by Nicole Blaine? Probably. And honestly...why shouldn’t it be?

Because here’s the thing: every Tuesday a bunch of storytellers get together simply because we love telling stories. Nobody is walking into the room thinking, “I’m about to meet the producer of my next project.” You’re just showing up. And then life does what life does.

It quietly introduces you to people before you know why you’re supposed to know them. That thought came back to me again this week when I met with a new PR woman who’s interested in helping with Confessions of a Sugar Baby.

She spent years working at HBO before deciding to build something on her own. Now she’s creating opportunities instead of waiting for them, and she’s excited about helping with the publicity side of the show.

Again...How did I meet her? Not through a publicist. Not through my representation. I met her while filming Drunk Hamilton. I was there trying to network with social media creators because, if I’m being completely honest, I spend way too much time looking at people with massive followings wondering how on earth they did it. I look at someone with a million followers and think, “Teach me your ways.” How do you keep posting every day? How did you build that audience? Do you ever get tired? Do you secretly cry after videos flop? You know...the normal questions. It’s funny because I was so focused on the people who already looked successful that I almost missed the relationships quietly forming around me.

The truth is, you never know who’s going to become a big deal tomorrow. You don’t know who’s about to start a production company. You don’t know who’s pitching a show next week. You don’t know who’s leaving their job at HBO to build their own business. You don’t know who’s related to someone. Who can casually say, “Oh yeah...I’ll send them a DM.” Hollywood runs on those six words. “I’ll send them a DM.”

It’s such a ridiculous industry when you really think about it. Someone knows someone who knows someone who worked with someone. The degrees of separation are somehow microscopic. My manager and my agent are always telling me that my time is coming. Some days I believe them. Some days I don’t. Some days I look around and think everyone else is moving faster than I am. Other days I realize that maybe this whole career isn’t actually about moving fast.

Maybe it’s about staying. Because if you stay long enough, your classmates become casting directors. Your scene partners become producers. Your improv friends become writers. The person you met at a storytelling night suddenly becomes exactly the collaborator your project needed. The connections aren’t random. They’re cumulative. They’re built every time you put yourself out there…and aren’t a complete ass to someone. Every coffee. Every set. Every class. Every tiny interaction that feels insignificant until years later when it suddenly isn’t.

I think that’s why this industry rewards people who are scrappy. Not necessarily the loudest. Not necessarily the most talented. The scrappy ones. The ones who keep showing up. The ones who make things when no one’s watching.

The ones who volunteer, perform in black box theaters, write their own material, produce their own shows, and somehow still find enough energy to cheer for everyone else’s wins.

The people who survive. There’s a quote from Maureen Stapleton that my Shakespeare mentor Charles E Gerber always quotes at me: “Actors are a much hardier breed than other people. We have to be as clever as rats to survive.”

I think she’s exactly right. The entertainment industry isn’t built for people who need certainty. It’s built for people willing to bet on themselves over and over again. You have to be resourceful, creative, ambitious and delusional. You have to believe that the room with twenty people in it matters, even if nobody famous is there….YET.

Maybe the person sitting beside you is going to become HUGE in three years. Or maybe they’re going to become the producer of your next project. Or maybe they’re simply going to become a lifelong friend. The point is, you don’t know. None of us do.

So keep showing up and introducing yourself and making your own work. So when people read this years from now after my amazing spectacular delusional success story….how I met my fancy producers and team? I was nice. I was present. I didn’t even know who they were until they told me. My advice? Say yes to random opportunities and be clever as a rat.

This industry has a funny way of introducing you to the people who will change your life long before either of you realize that’s what’s happening.

You never know who’s going to change your life. You just have to be there when they do.

How did you meet your collaborators? Leave a comment! I wanna know!

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CONFESSIONS OF A SUGAR BABY TICKETS ARE LIVE. Last week I gave my readers a discount code. Live taping September 25 and 26.

P.S. I’m meeting tomorrow with my producers and the Crow to figure out a blood drive, themed cocktails and yummy food. This is an event baby!

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LINK TO TICKETS

Allison Dayne is a Los Angeles-based Equity actor, writer, and comedian. She wrote and stars in the upcoming short film A King’s Curtain, which will be released this year. The film features a cast that includes Austin Pendleton, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Veanne Cox. She won Best Actress at the Indie Short International Film Festival. A King’s Curtain just won BEST DRAMA at the LA FILM SHORTS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, MANHATTAN FILM FESTIVAL, BURBANK INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL as well as AMT INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL.

She recently performed at the sold out show Baby Bumps at Crow Comedy in Los Angeles. She is currently training at both the Groundlings program and Upright Citizens Brigade, continuing to develop her skills in comedy and improvisation. She previously studied at Second City and has modeled across the country.

Her work spans film, theater, and comedy, with a focus on creating original content and performing across multiple platforms.

IMDB

INSTAGRAM

TED TALK

TikTok

Voyage LA Article

His profile name was “Fishing Daddy” which I read very slowly because I was trying to understand if that was a warning or a personality and I eventually landed on personality. I pictured a man who always smelled like sunscreen and lake water, someone who owned too many coolers, someone who had a collection of hats that all said different versions of “Gone Fishing” and absolutely zero self awareness about it. I fully imagined a red headed man with a fishing rod permanently in his hand, like even at weddings, like TSA would have to ask him to check it. I imagined him giving children those terrifying singing fish plaques as gifts and being very proud of himself for it. That was the man I agreed to meet.

He sent me a message on the site saying, “I need a date to my daughter’s wedding. My ex wife is a bitch. It says you’re an actor. Can you do this?”

I saw this as a role of a lifetime. I get to be cast in a romantic comedy?! Are you kidding me?! This is a job. This is casting. So I said yes.

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The wedding was at the Sky Room in Atlanta. For those of you just discovering this Sugar Baby journey…this is a true story. I actually recommend the Sky Room! It’s a lovely venue.

I remember pulling up and immediately feeling like I had entered a different financial ecosystem. There was valet and I was sitting in my grandmother’s car which she had given me with this very sincere hope that I would become a successful actress.

I wore a black dress I already owned. It fit fine in theory but I felt completely wrong inside of it, like my body was swelling. My legs at that time were doing this thing I did not yet understand where they would randomly burn or itch or feel like they were filled with static electricity. I would have to press my hand into the back of my thigh just to ground myself and pretend I was simply adjusting my posture. If you ever see me randomly grab my leg…just know that’s me adjusting the insane burst of pain I feel in my legs.

The Sky Room itself was beautiful in that very Southern way where everything looks soft but expensive. The air smelled like perfume and air conditioning trying to keep up with perfume. There were guests already inside who wore Kentucky Derby hats. I was excited for the obvious mojito in my future.

And then I realized the most important problem of the night. I had no idea what Fishing Daddy looked like. I only had the concept. He knew what I looked like. I had no idea what HE looked like.

So I started doing what I can only describe as the worst decision. I would walk up to groups of men holding drinks and very politely ask if they were Fishing Daddy and they would look at me like I had escaped from somewhere. One man actually laughed. Another just slowly backed away and said, “my wife is here.”

Eventually I saw him. He was in his fifties and wearing a tuxedo that did not fit him. I mean those buttons were screaming. His shoulders looked slightly defeated. He kept scanning the room for his plus one. That was me. I was the plus one.

I walked up to him and asked very quietly if he was Fishing Daddy.

He paused and said, “Oh… people call me Roger.”

For legal purposes that’s not his name but I like the name Roger for this guy.) He took me in and said, “You’re so elegant.” I appreciated that.

So I took his arm like I had done this before, like this was normal for me. I said, “Let’s put on a show.” I could feel this mans relief for hiring an actor.

Inside the wedding everything was extremely intentional. There were blush pink florals everywhere, orange accents, and white linens that made everything feel more formal.

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At one point Roger casually pointed out the Mother of the Bride to me. He said, “That’s her. That’s why you’re here.” I turned and saw her and immediately understood I was now in the part of the story where I had to perform.

She was wearing a royal purple matching set that looked like it had been purchased at Dillard’s during a very confident moment in her life. And on her chest was a large bright bumblebee brooch that was so distinct and told me a lot about this woman.

I told Roger we needed a selfie. He hesitated and said he did not really do photos and I told him not to worry because it was for my job. I saw the Mother of the Bride enter the bathroom. It was my time. I told Roger to get me a drink because I needed him occupied while I did what I was about to do.

I followed her in and made sure to relieve myself next to her stall. I waited until I heard her flush and exited at the same time.

I became very light, very playful, slightly flirtatious in a way that is not actually about attraction but about control. I asked her how she knew the bride and she looked at me like I was a problem. She stiffed up and said, “ I’m the Mother. The Mother of the bride.” I giggled and said, “Congrats!” She then shifted, “How do you know Samantha?”

I told her I did not know Samantha at all and that I was just a sexy plus one, and I let that sit in the air for a second the way you would let a line land on stage, and then I asked if she knew Roger.

The shift in her body was immediate.

She asked if I was with Roger and I said yes and she asked how we met and I said Pilates. I told her he helped me stretch in ways I was still discovering and I watched her face melt. I then showed the selfie of us together.

Before leaving I complimented her bumblebee brooch and I walked out because I understood that the exit is part of the performance.

When I found Roger again I saw the Mother of the Bride looking at us. I then purred in his ear, “laugh right now” so he did. In a terrible way. Worst acting I’ve seen in awhile. He slapped his leg…but it got the job done. She was peeved for sure.

The ceremony itself was genuinely beautiful. Roger cried when he spoke about his daughter. He talked about integrity and love and being a father and for brief moments I forgot I was being paid because he sounded like a real human being in a real emotional experience and not a character I had stepped into.

At one point I took his hand and placed it on my thigh when I could feel people looking at us. He began crying again and I wiped his face with a tissue from my purse like this was something I knew how to do.

Dinner blurred into speeches and dancing and clinking glasses and I am almost certain I appear somewhere in a wedding album smiling like I belong there. I wonder when my TV comes out if they will ever realize it was me.

At the end of the night we walked to valet and I finally had to ask the question I had been avoiding, which was how payment actually worked in this world. I asked if I should request a venmo.

He giggled and handed me a birthday card. That was when I learned that public transactions happen in celebration cards. I didn’t know if the money was in there…but I trusted him. He was a dad after all.

I hugged him very tightly, possibly too tightly, told him I hoped he got what he needed from the evening, and he kissed my hand and said he believed he did.

When I got into my car my legs were throbbing so badly I could barely focus. I looked on my rearview mirror and saw the Mother of the Bride tap on Roger’s shoulder and ask for a dance. I did a good job. I would get a callback for sure. I opened the birthday card and there it was. 1200 in cash. IN CASH! I screamed and wanted to rub it on my veins already.

I remember running upstairs to my small studio apartment. I held the cash in my hands and was unsure of where to put it. I looked under my bed and found my suitcase. I removed some old costumes and placed my first wad of cash inside. I was in business.

IMPORTANT INFO -

Confessions of a Sugar Baby is being performed and filmed live at The Crow Comedy in Santa Monica on September 25 and 26. If you’ve been following along on Substack, you’re getting early access with a special discount code before tickets go public, which feels only fair considering you’ve been inside this story from the beginning. Link to tickets is below and the code is : SUGARBB20

SHOW LINK HERE!

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Allison Dayne is a Los Angeles-based Equity actor, writer, and comedian. She wrote and stars in the upcoming short film A King’s Curtain, which will be released this year. The film features a cast that includes Austin Pendleton, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Veanne Cox. She won Best Actress at the Indie Short International Film Festival. A King’s Curtain just won BEST DRAMA at the LA FILM SHORTS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, MANHATTAN FILM FESTIVAL, BURBANK INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL as well as AMT INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL.

She recently performed at the sold out show Baby Bumps at Crow Comedy in Los Angeles. She is currently training at both the Groundlings program and Upright Citizens Brigade, continuing to develop her skills in comedy and improvisation. She previously studied at Second City and has modeled across the country.

Her work spans film, theater, and comedy, with a focus on creating original content and performing across multiple platforms.

IMDB

INSTAGRAM

TED TALK

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Voyage LA Article

“So… what even is a sugar baby?”

Honestly? Great question. It depends who you ask.

According to Google and Google is always right…a sugar baby is “a younger person who receives financial support, gifts, or mentorship from a wealthier, usually older partner, in exchange for companionship, affection, or other mutually agreed upon forms of intimacy.”

Because when you read that definition out loud, it sounds scandalous. You hear it and immediately picture yachts, tiny dogs, someone named Bradford with a trust fund, and the couple from HBO’s Succession who ironically are the happiest in the end.

Society and the general public believes this a very bad thing. It’s a very strange topic. It’s also NEWSFLASH something that’s been happening since the dawn of time!

But then I have to ask… why do we love this trope so much?

We literally make movies about it all the time. Pretty Woman? Huge hit. Breakfast at Tiffany’s? Iconic. Moulin Rouge!? We gave that one awards. We eat these stories up. We don’t merely enjoy them; we romanticize them. We put them on mood boards. We quote them. We buy posters of them. We want a love like that!

But if your friend says, “I was a sugar baby once,” suddenly the room is split in two. You either have a friend who condemns you or a friend who wants to know a step by step process on how to do it. (Try it out sometime. See who wants to know more about it…it’ll surprise you.)

We love things in fiction that we hate in real life. We love murder mysteries but would hate to find a dead body. We love toxic romances in movies but if your best friend dated that guy, we’d all hold an intervention. (The Notebook is not a love story. It’s a cry for help. Noah and Allie are not romantic and you can’t change my mind.)

People love the sugar baby trope until someone says they’re living it. This all reminds me of one of my favorite strange interactions recently. I was filming an episode for Dropout TV that I cannot discuss because I enjoy employment and would like to continue having it. (More on this later BTW.)

Picture this. I was in a dressing room with other actors and we were doing what actors do best… discussing the industry while being simultaneously hopeful and devastated. A man discussed his job of being a sex therapist, a woman discussed a callback and another went on about her attempt about finishing The Artist’s Way.

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Then a woman casually mentioned that her day job was being a “professional dater.” I had to pause putting on my makeup and look at her. “A what?” She was annoyed I asked again but I had to know everything. I’m sure you do as well!

Apparently, she goes on dates with people and gets paid for it. I thought this was a politically correct way of saying Sugar Baby. I was wrong.

I asked her if she considered herself a sugar baby. And she said something I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. She said, “I’m not pretty enough for that. I’m a professional dater.” First of all, absolutely not. She was gorgeous. Second of all, women have got to stop talking about themselves this way.

But her statement stuck with me. A professional dater. What is the difference of a Sugar Baby then? Have I labeled my situation wrong? No…no I haven’t.

However….aren’t we all kind of professional daters? I know. Stay with me.

We all present versions of ourselves. We all pick outfits. We all curate our Instagram. We all decide which stories to tell on first dates and which stories are third-date information. We all try to seem interesting but not too interested. Successful but not intimidating. Funny but not weird. Pretty but effortless. Talented but humble. Sexy but humble. I could go on.

Dating is essentially branding. I say this as someone who literally works in entertainment and knows that authenticity is the only valuable thing a human soul has.

I think about transactions a lot. Because all relationships have them. Some people want security. Some people want adventure. Some people want children. Some people want status. Some people want companionship. Some people just don’t want to eat dinner alone. I don’t know that human beings have ever entered relationships without wanting something. It’s actually what we’re taught in every acting class. You’re asked, “what do you want in the scene?” Actors are taught to figure out the objective of your character and how to get your objective. Doesn’t that sound like all of humanity?

And maybe that’s why the Sugar Baby conversation is so interesting to me. Because it takes something that is often implied and says the quiet part out loud. That makes people uncomfortable. I think my one-woman show asks a lot of uncomfortable questions.

Questions I still don’t know the answers to. What are we willing to do to survive What are we willing to trade for safety? What happens when illness crashes into ambition What happens when you receive a diagnosis and suddenly time doesn’t feel endless anymore?

I don’t think Confessions of a Sugar Baby is actually about being a sugar baby. I think it’s about being human. I think it’s about making strange choices when you’re scared. I think it’s survival.

Life is messy and people aren’t uncomfortable with grey. They like black and white. And maybe that’s why I keep circling back to that woman in the dressing room.

“I’m not pretty enough for that. I’m a professional dater.” It didn’t feel like a joke. Maybe we’re all professional daters. Maybe we’re all just trying to be chosen. Maybe we’re all negotiating deals to have our ideal life.

I would love to hear your non-negotiable in the comments on people YOU date.

Anyway, Week 4 of prep is underway. This is when I’m being asked to post a social media reel a day, rehearsals everyday and figure out more PR for the show. See you in Week 5. P.S. I won best actress at Indie Short Fest!

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Allison Dayne is a Los Angeles-based Equity actor, writer, and comedian. She wrote and stars in the upcoming short film A King’s Curtain, which will be released this year. The film features a cast that includes Austin Pendleton, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Veanne Cox. She won Best Actress at the Indie Short International Film Festival. A King’s Curtain just won BEST DRAMA at the LA FILM SHORTS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, MANHATTAN FILM FESTIVAL, BURBANK INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL as well as AMT INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL.

She recently performed at the sold out show Baby Bumps at Crow Comedy in Los Angeles. She is currently training at both the Groundlings program and Upright Citizens Brigade, continuing to develop her skills in comedy and improvisation. She previously studied at Second City and has modeled across the country.

Her work spans film, theater, and comedy, with a focus on creating original content and performing across multiple platforms.

IMDB

INSTAGRAM

TED TALK

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Voyage LA Article

At the time, I was living in Georgia. A single DVT surgery costs around $30,000 without insurance. I had several clots. Several. And my veins were gross. I’m sure there are many technical terms for what was happening to my body, but you’re here for the story, not a medical textbook.

I was crying so hard I could barely breathe. I was outraged. I was scared. I was embarrassed. All I could think was: You’re stupid for thinking you could do it. I thought about all the money my parents had already poured into making me a functioning human being. The individual tutoring because of my dyslexia (hence the occasional typos, folks). The art school tuition. The gas money driving me to rehearsals. Every acting class. Every lesson. Every dream.

I felt like I already owed the world an impossible debt. I felt like I had so much to explain. I felt like a bat out of hell.

And then PLOT TWIST! Something completely out of my control. A disease I didn’t understand. A body I suddenly didn’t recognize. A future that felt canceled.

We’re now in week three of prepping for Confessions of a Sugar Baby, and I’m writing this journey with all of you. But to understand the show, you have to understand the inciting incident.

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I was a mess that day. The doctor explained my diagnosis and then handed me one of those awful brochures with smiling old white people on the cover. A kind reminder: this disorder is exceptionally rare in healthy people in their twenties. But sure. Very on brand for a Zillennial. What’s one more “once in a generation” moment?!

The doctor was almost excited. “Oh, we could publish your case! Your veins and legs are fascinating.” Oh, goodie. Here I was thrilled because my thesis on Anton Chekhov was published, and this man wanted to publish…my nasty decaying body. What a career pivot.

Then there was the nurse. I won’t use her real name, so let’s call her Nurse Jackie. Nurse Jackie had stood in the corner for the entire interaction. She watched me shrink in real time. I walked into that room six feet tall and slumped feeling two feet high.

I felt like Jean Valjean in Les Misérables.

“But sir! I need help!”

And the doctor, in my memory, practically sang:

Look down, look down… look at your nasty legs.

Please hum that to the tune of the song.

Then he left. I looked at Nurse Jackie with pure fury and rage. And she said something that changed my life. “Hey, kid. You’re not a milk carton. You don’t have an expiration date.” I stared at her. “What am I supposed to do?” I asked. She looked me dead in the eyes and said…"You’re a white girl with a great face and a big ass in Atlanta.”

I looked down at my body…the body I had always had confidence in and blurted out:“I’m barely an A-cup! I don’t have boobs! I’m not sexy like a stripper!” Without missing a beat, she said, “Have you looked into being a sugar baby?”

I had never heard the phrase before. Sugar daddy? Sure. I thought that was a myth. Right up there with princes coming to save the day and dragons. Apparently not.“Look, sweetheart,” she said. “Look into it. You’ll figure it out.”

I had absolutely no idea what the hell she was talking about. I changed out of the hospital gown, wiped all the ultrasound lube off my body, got into my car, and drove home.

I lived in a tiny studio apartment attached to someone’s house. Imagine a nicer version of Harry Potter’s closet. And I loved that apartment. I was so proud of it. One entire wall was covered in vision boards. Magazine clippings. Quotes. Pictures of places I wanted to travel. Red carpets. Homes. Movie sets. I had built a mural of the life I was going to have. And right in the middle was a phrase my mother had drilled into me since I was little: Never settle. Never settle.

So here I was…about to settle on my life? Absolutely not. I opened my laptop and Googled: What is a sugar baby?

The technical term according to Google is: a sugar baby is typically a younger, attractive person who enters into a mutually beneficial relationship with an older, wealthier partner in exchange for financial support, gifts, travel, mentorship, or companionship.

I was disgusted. This woman thought I could do that?

She thought I was going to have sex for money? I wasn’t like those women. I wasn’t like other girls. (Whenever a woman says she’s “not like other girls,” she is almost always exactly like other girls. I just didn’t know it yet.)

I called a friend. I asked her, “What do you think of Sugar Baby stuff?”

Without hesitation, she said: “Girl, do it. You’re only young and hot once. Get your bag. Think about all the things you’ve done for free or for a shitty date.”

I wish I could tell you I hung up in outrage. I did not. I awkwardly laughed. She then went on to tell me, “How do you think I paid for my trip?!” I said, “By working an extra shift?” She said, “Bitch no! My time is worth more! I’ve got my masters and that job doesn’t pay s***!”

Instead, I sat there. Thinking as I looked at the damn vision board. Then I opened Google again and typed: How do you become a sugar baby?

And that’s when a website called Seeking Arrangements popped up on my screen. I had no idea that with one click, my entire life was about to change. Tune in for next week.

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Allison Dayne is a Los Angeles-based Equity actor, writer, and comedian. She wrote and stars in the upcoming short film A King’s Curtain, which will be released this year. The film features a cast that includes Austin Pendleton, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Veanne Cox. A King’s Curtain just won BEST DRAMA at the LA FILM SHORTS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL and BURBANK INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL as well as AMT INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL.

She recently performed at the sold out show Baby Bumps at Crow Comedy in Los Angeles. She is currently training at both the Groundlings program and Upright Citizens Brigade, continuing to develop her skills in comedy and improvisation. She previously studied at Second City and has modeled across the country.

Her work spans film, theater, and comedy, with a focus on creating original content and performing across multiple platforms.

IMDB

INSTAGRAM

TED TALK

TikTok

Voyage LA Article

I’m sure you’re wondering…Allison…what was it like living without health insurance? It’s really fun. I’ll tell you that much. Your family members call you asking why you made the life choices you did. Your friends think you’re dying. You feel like a burden.

But what it was like for me?! For little ole me?

If you’re curious it’s waking up and doing a full scan of yourself and thinking if you “look” okay you just BE okay. You’re Googling symptoms at two in the morning and trying to decide if you’re being annoying or if the internet is right…you’re dead.

It’s drinking water and believing everything will be okay. You have age on your side! That’s for other people. Not you. Never YOU. Those are stories for people you read in books and plays. Alas…what if you become the main character?

The first time I noticed something was off I was in grad school. My legs changed first. Now yes, I’m six feet tall and I’m all legs so…this makes sense.

There were these veins that started showing up in a way I could not unsee. Thick blue lines rising under my skin like someone had drawn a map. I would press on them and they would shift slightly, like they were responding. Like they were part of something I was only partially aware of.

I started following them with my eyes the way you follow lines on a ceiling when bored. I could probably draw my entire circulatory system with a red and blue Sharpie. A full highway system running through my body that I had never really had to think about before…except in eight grade Biology.

To be honest with you, I was also heavier at the time. So I did what women are trained to do! I blamed my fat ass for my blood problems. Was I fat? No. Did I believe I was? Yes.

I remember thinking, “This is what happens when you are a normal weighted woman trying to become an actor. This is karma. This is the cost!”

I was wrong! I did not know that yet. The veins would come and go. Some days they were loud and obvious and other days; I could pretend they were not there at all. I would wear leggings and convince myself I had solved it. I became very good at solving things that were not actually solved.

Then I went home to visit my parents in Boise. I wore a dress.

My uncle Brian was there and he noticed it immediately. There was a large blue vein in my left leg that I had gotten used to ignoring but he had not. The room whispered a lot and drank more wine. Lots of pointing and whispering happened.

My parents said it was probably cosmetic. A cosmetic issue. Insurance doesn’t cover anything cosmetic if you’re wondering. So I went to doctor in Boise.

The doctor looked at my leg and decided very quickly that this was something he could fix. He took a needle and poked behind my knee. Newsflash for anyone who needs to hear it. YES. Needles where most of your nerves in your leg are…hurt.

I watched the large blue vein disappear. He said, “Weird to have someone as young as you here.” And went about our business. I was always the youngest in rooms. This didn’t seem odd for me. For a while it went away! Or at least it went quiet enough that I could go back to my life and pretend I was not thinking about it anymore.

Then I started working again. I did Titus Andronicus at the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival. It was one of the happiest times of my life. It only makes sense if you have ever been completely exhausted in a place that feels like it understands you. There was no air conditioning. There was sweat, chaos and people who were fully committed to the shared delusion. I loved that summer. It was my last summer before my body changed. I was swept up in it in every sense.

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I was sweeping the stage one day when my leg went through it. Not metaphorically. Literally. It was a simple accident in a theater way. A weak spot in a floor. A wrong step. Suddenly, my leg was under the stage and they helped me get up.

When I woke up the next morning my leg was covered in bruises. Massive dark spreading bruises that looked like my skin had decided to tell a story without asking me first. I told myself I had hit it harder than I realized. I told myself I was being dramatic. I told myself a lot of things….I was very good at believing.

Then the nosebleeds came back. I always had nosebleeds as a kid. I had my nose cauterized more than once. I did not think I would be revisiting that part of my life as an adult. But I was. And I kept going anyway.

Because I was in my twenties and I had absorbed a very specific cultural idea about what it means to be serious. You push through. You do not complain. You do not become the person who stops everything because their body is asking for attention. Or you will be left behind.

I had read every self help book on the planet and they all said in some version of language: VICTIMS DON’T ACHIEVE SHIT. BUCKLE UP GIRL. IT’S ON YOU. DON’T DEPEND ON ANYONE.

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So I made a decision that I would not be a victim. Even when it was to my own body. Even when my body was the thing asking for help. I just kept going. You just hide the bloody noses and the wheezing and insane periods and the blood. ALL THE BLOOD.

Then I was in Atlanta. That’s when it stopped being something I could rationalize.

My legs were swollen and heavy in a way that I got tired after walking. I wanted my legs to be shaken or shifted all the time. My vision would go for a few seconds when I stood up too fast. I would wake up with bloodshot eyes like I had not slept in days even when I had. My body would tremor sometimes and I would tell myself, “STRESS! EXHAUSTION! ANXIETY! COLD! WEAR A SWEATER!”

I was still working. Still auditioning. Still trying to be the version of myself that kept everything moving forward. And I still did not go to a doctor. I did not have insurance. I didn’t work enough as an actor to get SAG insurance. The doctor and medical world made me feel like a failure. I was so proud of myself for getting my first equity role in Titus Andronicus…and then the “real world” came and said YOU’RE A FUCKING LOSER. NO OSCAR?! NO CO-PAY! (I’m very proud of that line.)

And I had this quiet belief that if something was truly wrong I would somehow know. Or it would become undeniable in a way that did not require me to spend money I did not have. That’s not how bodies work.

Eventually, I went to a vein specialist anyway because something in me stopped negotiating. My boyfriend of the time said my body looked scary. I looked like a monster. He woke up one time and was annoyed I bled on his pillowcase in the night and said, “You’re so annoying! Stop bleeding everywhere!” Which in hindsight is really funny.

They scanned everything. My legs. My arms. My stomach. Cold gel everywhere. A quiet room. My ass was on a leather chair. Several nurses coming in and out of a room. All scanning and unsure of what they were looking at.

The nurse asked me, “Why did you wait so long?”

I said, “I have a kink for torture.”

She didn’t laugh. Tough room.

The doctor came in afterwards and told me I was in serious trouble. Multiple pulmonary embolisms, multiple tiny clots and several veins that aren’t functioning correctly.

My blood was clotting. My system was forming blockages. My body was doing something that could kill me. My body wanted to stop. My body was fighting me while I kept trying to be productive and grateful and resilient.

And then he said it, “You’re going to die if we don’t act now.”

“Me? Die? You don’t get it! I’m a big deal!”

Doctor, “Oh! Are you an astronaut?” “I’m an actor!” “Have you been in anything I would have seen?” SILENCE. “Did you see Titus Andronicus at-” He walked out the door.

And I was alone in Atlanta when I heard that.

Completely alone in a city. I refused to give up. I needed a solution. I needed something.

And what I also knew, immediately and without debate, was that I could not tell my parents the full truth.

Not because I do not love them. Because I do. I knew exactly what would happen.

They would panic in a way that would not help anything. They would start carrying a fear they could not put down. And I would end up managing their fear on top of managing my own body. There was no version of that I wanted to go down.

So I stayed quiet. I stayed alone with it.

I was also dating such a boy at the time. Ya know, the one who thought bleeding was annoying? When life gets real boys become men or crumble. Medical crisis has a way of revealing that very quickly. It shows you who can stay and who disappears the moment things stop being easy. Who can handle responsibility and who only knows how to exist inside comfort. He was not someone who could stay.

And I seem to have a pattern of making men who believe they are made of steel suddenly melt to their knees. I don’t say that as a compliment it’s just something I have noticed. Maybe I’m a modern day Medusa and my bloody smile turns them to stone.

I was holding all of it alone. My body. My fear. My work. My silence.

Multiple pulmonary embolisms. A body that was not asking politely anymore. A system that had been screaming underneath everything I was trying to achieve. No insurance. No plan. Just a dumbass like myself who thought they were one in a million.

I sat in an office bawling my eyes. A nurse looked at me and said, “Have you ever thought about being a stripper?” I laughed. I don’t have big boobs! I’m not a sexy woman. I’m a funny woman. In fact I’m the kind of woman that wouldn’t have made it through the Salem trials. She then paused and said, “What about a Sugar Baby….”

There is no clean way to wrap up this week’s writing neatly.

Now, you do know I didn’t die from this chapter of my life…because I’m writing this in a hotel room after having a zoom meeting with my director, texting my producer about social media posts and prepping my next WORK IN PROGRESS SHOW. That’s where my show comes into play….

This is week two of preparing for my show Confessions of a Sugar Baby. September 25 and 26 at The Crow Comedy in Santa Monica.

It’s what you do with the story that matters. Buckle up readers…I’ve got more to share. SUBSCRIBE…WERE ON THIS JOURNEY TOGETHER.

P.S. Please join this journey…I really want to share this with the world. I didn’t go through all of this to not help others know YOU AREN’T ALONE.

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Allison Dayne is a Los Angeles-based Equity actor, writer, and comedian. She wrote and stars in the upcoming short film A King’s Curtain, which will be released this year. The film features a cast that includes Austin Pendleton, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Veanne Cox. A King’s Curtain just won BEST DRAMA at the LA FILM SHORTS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL and BURBANK INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL as well as AMT INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL.

She recently performed at the sold out show Baby Bumps at Crow Comedy in Los Angeles. She is currently training at both the Groundlings program and Upright Citizens Brigade, continuing to develop her skills in comedy and improvisation. She previously studied at Second City and has modeled across the country.

Her work spans film, theater, and comedy, with a focus on creating original content and performing across multiple platforms.

IMDB

INSTAGRAM

TED TALK

TikTok

Voyage LA Article

I was sitting in a paper gown when a nurse looked at me and said, “You know, most people would have married rich by now.” I laughed. Then I cried in the parking lot. I’ll tell you why…eventually.

For now, I need to tell you something else. The last four years have been the hardest of my life. Not because of my career. Ironically, that’s the part that kept working.

The hard part was that I was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder. The fancy word is Venous Thromboembolism…the way I explain it is my blood likes to clot. Some people’s blood goes one way. Mine goes both.

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There were moments I was genuinely afraid I wasn’t going to get the life I thought I was supposed to have. The career. The family. The future. My curated living room where artists come and perform regularly. Yeah…I’m the hostess with the hostess in my head. Screenings of films my friends have made. It’s on my vision board.

It’s difficult to explain what happens when your body betrays you. You start bargaining with time. You start measuring your life differently.

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I don’t talk about this much publicly. Partly because I’m a funny person and my instinct is to turn everything into a joke before anyone can feel bad for me. Partly because I spent years trying to convince everyone…including myself…that I was fine.

But if I’m honest, these last few years broke me open. And then it took another few years to figure out what to do with all of it.

That’s where Confessions of a Sugar Baby came from.

The show is a true story. My story. The story of what happened after that diagnosis. The absurdity, the grief, the doctors, the surgeries, the things people said to me, the choices I had to make, and the bizarre ways we try to survive when life becomes unrecognizable. And before you THINK you know what the show is about…you don’t. I’m telling the story of how I became a Sugar Baby to pay for medical bills. Strap on in.

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!

This September I’ll be performing the one-woman show at the Crow Comedy in Santa Monica. A theater where Netflix is a Joke is filmed, famous comedians come every week and specials are created. We’re filming it for streaming services. It’s also being pitched as a limited series and podcast. What?! I just typed that!? The thing’s I’ve wanted my entire life…are GOING TO happen. You know how Doechi published her Artist’s Way Journey? Welcome aboard to mine.

And between now and opening night, this Substack is becoming my diary.

This is a record of a woman standing on the edge of the biggest thing she’s ever made and trying to make sense of how she got here. Can you believe it?!

Because the truth is, I don’t know what happens next.

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I don’t know if telling the truth this publicly is the smartest thing I’ve ever done or the dumbest. Either way…we got nothing to lose! Isn’t that the fun of following an artist? I’ll prove to you all that you’re actually capable of anything. Let me prove it to you.

I just know that this show will change lives, it feels irresponsible not to tell the story. This show is directed by Cameron Lopez. This show is produced by Kelsey Egger and Maggie Chieffo.

So for the next few months, I’m taking you with me. The show is September 25 and 26. Stay tuned for more details. I’m being honest and vulnerable. According to every wise person ever…that’s what creates great art.

So Subscribe. I’m taking you with me.

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Allison Dayne is a Los Angeles-based Equity actor, writer, and comedian. She wrote and stars in the upcoming short film A King’s Curtain, which will be released this year. The film features a cast that includes Austin Pendleton, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Veanne Cox. A King’s Curtain just won BEST DRAMA at the LA FILM SHORTS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL and BURBANK INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL as well as AMT INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL.

She recently performed at the sold out show Baby Bumps at Crow Comedy in Los Angeles. She is currently training at both the Groundlings program and Upright Citizens Brigade, continuing to develop her skills in comedy and improvisation. She previously studied at Second City and has modeled across the country.

Her work spans film, theater, and comedy, with a focus on creating original content and performing across multiple platforms.

IMDB

INSTAGRAM

TED TALK

TikTok

Voyage LA Article

Or! Maybe we’ve always been like this and technology just gave the neurosis a user interface. I travel constantly for work. Film sets. Theater festivals. Zoom meetings. Airports where I see thousands of people I’ll never see again. Hotels with the same white sheets like a hospital or insane asylum. I live in this strange rotation of intimacy and disappearance.

One week you are surrounded by people every second of the day. You’re sweating beside them in rehearsal rooms. Sharing fries at midnight. Hearing about their divorces. Their weird mothers. Their exes who never got it together and are a DJ. You develop a close-knit family over and over and over again. Then suddenly it’s over. And back to reality. Or a version of it.

Everyone scatters back into their real lives like rats. And you’re alone again in another hotel room with one bedside lamp, a cuck chair and off-brand hotel lotion that probably causes cancer.

The silence after creative environments feels wild to me. Because when you’re inside them, you almost believe this is life now. These are your people. This momentum will continue forever. Basically…everyone joins a cult very quickly. Then you leave and it’s like being abruptly removed from the ecosystem. Like someone unplugged the simulation. Or the CIA found out we had guns and Netflix is on the way to make a documentary about us.

And I genuinely don’t know if this is a me problem or if everybody secretly feels this way all the time but just has better hobbies. Because I become a monster. A wild manic monster.

I work out obsessively when I’m alone. Not in a wellness way. In a I would have not survived the Kennedy family sort of way. I run until my legs hurt because my brain feels like a browser with 74 tabs open and I need a plan or a map for the future.

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I write constantly. I pitch things. I make lists. I plan projects with the intensity of Napoleon in battle. And then…because I apparently enjoy self-inflicted psychological warfare: I open social media. (I KNOW. I KNOW. THE WORLD IS ENDING AND SOCIAL MEDIA IS BAD FOR YOU. WHAT DO YOU EXPECT ME TO DO WHEN WE ALL ARE TRYING TO WIN AT THIS GAME WE CALL LIFE?!)

Which, I genuinely believe a disease we released on the world. An app where you can simultaneously witness everyone’s life while becoming increasingly convinced nobody remembers yours. You see people at dinner together. People falling in love. People getting cast in things. People posting “miss you!” under photos of each other while never actually texting you back. (Red flag behavior and if you do this to me…know I hate you.)

And because my brain is deeply reasonable and healthy, I immediately think:
Oh. I see. I’ve vanished. Not metaphorically. Like fully ceased to exist in people’s minds the second I exited their eyeline.

I know how insane that sounds. But I also know I’m not alone in it because lately every conversation I have somehow circles back to loneliness. Modern loneliness. A deep loneliness I think we all feel.

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A loneliness where people wonder if they matter due to numbers on an app or if people remember them at all. The kind where we are all perceiving each other constantly but having a conversation. I wonder if social media has fundamentally broken something ancient in us. Because humans used to leave villages and maybe never see each other again. Which sounds devastating until you realize at least there was clarity in it. Even closure.

Now everyone exists in this horrifying limbo of partial access. You can watch your ex get a haircut in real time but not know how their voice sounds anymore. You can know what someone had for brunch while having absolutely no idea if they’re happy. You can watch people slowly drift away from you in high definition. And maybe that’s why so many of us feel insane now. I've always been insane so I’m glad others are catching up.

No relationship fully dies anymore. It just remains lightly refrigerated online forever.

I think about this constantly in hotel rooms. I’ll sit there after performing or filming something, still carrying the emotional electricity of the day, and suddenly I become overwhelmed by this ridiculous fear that if I stop posting or texting or showing up, everyone will simply… move on.

Like visibility has become proof of existence. I wonder sometimes if we even post to share anymore. Or if we post because somewhere deep down we are all quietly asking:
Please confirm I’m still here.

And honestly? I don’t even think that’s narcissism anymore. I think it’s grief.

I think we are grieving community while pretending we are networking. Because humans were never meant to maintain this many shallow points of contact. Our brains cannot process being vaguely connected to eight hundred people simultaneously. We are emotionally overstimulated. How many people do you actually like? Four? Including your parents?

There are people I haven’t spoken to in years who still appear in my hand every morning. That cannot be psychologically natural. And yet despite all this constant visibility, I think most people secretly walk around believing they are forgettable.

As if their absence goes unnoticed. That if they left the party nobody would mention it.mWhich breaks my heart because I don’t actually think it’s true. I think people carry each other constantly. Quietly.

I think someone remembers your joke from three years ago and repeats it at dinner. I think someone associates a song with you and never tells you. I think there are people who miss you while unloading groceries. I think there are rooms where your name still comes up after you’ve gone. But loneliness is persuasive…and a bitch.

And social media is essentially a machine designed to make human connection feel measurable when it absolutely isn’t. You cannot quantify love through response times. You cannot measure importance through views. You cannot determine your worth by whether someone watched your story while sitting on the toilet.

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And still we try. God, we try. I know I do!

I don’t know. Maybe this entire piece is just me publicly admitting that I’m scared of being forgotten and worry I travel too much and have been so frustrated with the world lately. Which feels cringe and weird…but you’re on my substack and you’ve come to know me. I am your cringe weird writer.

So I keep coming back to that question: If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound? Yes. Obviously. You just weren’t there to hear it.

And maybe that’s us too. Maybe our lives ripple outward in ways we never fully witness. Maybe being unseen isn’t the same thing as being unreal. Maybe people remember us far more than we dare to believe.

Or…maybe we’re all just standing alone in separate apartments. Refreshing apps and trying to prove to ourselves that we still exist in each other’s minds. Honestly, probably both.

P.S. I got written about in Voyage LA Magazine again. Link is here. VOYAGE LA

Come to my upcoming show in the Hollywood Fringe. Baby Bumps!

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Allison Dayne is a Los Angeles-based Equity actor, writer, and comedian. She wrote and stars in the upcoming short film A King’s Curtain, which will be released this year. The film features a cast that includes Austin Pendleton, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Veanne Cox. A King’s Curtain just won BEST DRAMA at the LA FILM SHORTS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL and BURBANK INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL as well as AMT INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL.

She recently performed at the sold out show Baby Bumps at Crow Comedy in Los Angeles. She is currently training at both the Groundlings program and Upright Citizens Brigade, continuing to develop her skills in comedy and improvisation. She previously studied at Second City and has modeled across the country.

Her work spans film, theater, and comedy, with a focus on creating original content and performing across multiple platforms.

IMDB

INSTAGRAM

TED TALK

TikTok

Voyage LA Article

Four years ago, we were on that same campus for his white coat ceremony. Back when everything felt suspended. Back when my life was in a completely different zip code emotionally and geographically. I was living in Atlanta, deeply depressed, in a relationship that felt like a waiting room I couldn’t leave, and daydreaming about Los Angeles or New York City. Finally able to get back to “real life” after the pandemic…like they were mythological lands where my real life might finally begin.

Aaron was starting his next big ole step. I don’t think we knew…or maybe we did…it’s all an emotional blur anymore that my Dad had cancer. But, I remember that weekend as strangely, beautifully easy.

We walked around Aaron’s new campus. We visited Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s house, where the tour is both impressive and depressing. You see the architecture, the inventions, the gardens… and then you learn about the enslaved people he owned. The children he had with an enslaved woman. The fact that he freed almost none of them. None of them. That wasn’t mentioned in Hamilton.

Then we went to the white coat ceremony, where several students were coated by doctors in their own families. Fathers. Mothers. Legacy. Nepotism but featuring The Pitt! Aaron had none of that. So the long-running joke in my family was that Thomas Jefferson himself would have to show up.

Four years later….I bought a full Thomas Jefferson costume and wrote him a Declaration of Independence from medical school. I wore that damn costume all weekend. I stood there as a deranged founding father while my brother tried to pretend he wasn’t related to me. This is how my family processes things. With humor.

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In those four years, I moved to Los Angeles. My life got better in a way people don’t like to admit is possible; because it suggests you might actually be able to change yours. My dad went through cancer treatment and said, very plainly, “I just want to be alive to see Aaron graduate medical school.” And this weekend, he was. But that’s not the realization I had.

Here’s what hit me. All of those students who just graduated? They are nowhere near where they want to be. They are about to start internal medicine years. Residencies. Fellowships. Specialties. More exams. More years. More titles they have not yet earned. Not one of them walked across that stage thinking, I have arrived.

They all had the exact same energy: “This is just a step.” And society completely accepts that. No one looks at a 28-year-old new doctor and goes, “Wow. You’re behind. Why aren’t you a renowned heart surgeon yet?” No one tells them,
“Shouldn’t you have figured this out by now?” No one says, “Four years? That’s it?” We all collectively understand: this takes time. We grant doctors permission to take a decade to become what they’re meant to be. Lawyers too. Professors. Architects. Pilots. Literally every respected career path on earth.

And yet.

If you are an artist? An actor? A writer? A director? You’re supposed to have “made it” by 25 or you’re “late.” You’re supposed to be “discovered.” You’re supposed to be an overnight success.

We say the phrase all the time: “It takes 10 years to become an overnight success.”

This weekend I realized something radical: That’s not a cute saying. That’s just how long greatness takes.

In every single field. Medicine isn’t faster. Law isn’t faster. Academia isn’t faster. None of it is faster. We just respect the timeline in those careers. We don’t respect it in art. Watching those graduates, I realized I have been wildly unfair to myself. I have been expecting artistic mastery, career recognition, and life clarity on a timeline that we would never demand of a doctor.

And here’s the other thing that hit me like a brick: I don’t have nepotism either.

Just like Aaron. Our Dad was an Air Force F1-11 fighter pilot who became a captain. God Dad…didn’t you know your kids were gonna do something else!? You fool! We don’t have someone in our industry. We’ve already broken insane statistics for getting this far. No family friend who can “make a call.” No legacy coat waiting to be placed on my shoulders. Everything I’ve done…the films, the shows, the sketches, the rooms I’ve talked my way into, the stages I’ve gotten myself onto… I dragged myself there by the ankles. Aaron got himself into that school through grades, charisma and test scores.

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And when I look at what I’ve achieved, my instinct is still to go, “Not enough. Not yet. Why isn’t this bigger?” But if this were medicine? If this were law? If this were anything else? People would be applauding the trajectory. They would say, “She’s just getting started.” And that’s when it clicked. I’m just getting started.

This whole journey is wild. And long. And confusing. And nonlinear. And sometimes humiliating. And sometimes exhilarating. And mostly invisible to everyone except you.

But that doesn’t make it small. It makes it fun.

I wanted to write this to say, very plainly: Newsflash, buddy.

Everything great takes time.

And we are living in a world that demands instant gratification. Same-day shipping. Viral overnight. Six-figure months. Life hacks. Shortcuts. Cheat codes.

But the best things in life? They are not worth waiting on…because I deeply don’t agree with sitting around waiting for anything.

They are worth striving for. Worth building toward. Worth walking toward. Worth embarrassing yourself toward. Worth failing toward. Because what else are you going to do? Wonder what if? Scroll and compare and decide you’re behind?

I have never known a world without social media. I have never known a world where you weren’t constantly seeing someone else’s highlight reel and quietly measuring your life against it.

So maybe what felt so calming about this weekend was watching an ancient tradition. White coats. Oaths. Ceremonies. A system that has existed long before Instagram stories and TikTok timelines.

And realizing: Life can be long. Long enough for you to become exactly who you’re trying to be. As long as you keep taking the right steps. As long as you keep going.

Greatness isn’t reserved for the chosen.

It’s reserved for the persistent.

P.S.

It’s also reserved for someone who looks as good as I did in that Thomas Jefferson costume. I held onto that joke for four years…it was totally worth it.

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Allison Dayne is a Los Angeles-based Equity actor, writer, and comedian. She wrote and stars in the upcoming short film A King’s Curtain, which will be released this year. The film features a cast that includes Austin Pendleton, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Veanne Cox. A King’s Curtain just won BEST DRAMA at the LA FILM SHORTS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL and BURBANK INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL as well as AMT INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL.

She recently performed at the sold out show Baby Bumps at Crow Comedy in Los Angeles. She is currently training at both the Groundlings program and Upright Citizens Brigade, continuing to develop her skills in comedy and improvisation. She previously studied at Second City and has modeled across the country.

Her work spans film, theater, and comedy, with a focus on creating original content and performing across multiple platforms.

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And I do not know how to feel.

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Because in this industry, everything is both real and not real at the same time. A meeting is a win. A meeting is nothing. A callback is thrilling. A callback is pre rejection. A “we love this” is a warm hug that may later become a ghost. I’m living in a psychological purgatory where good things are happening in a way that does not count to anyone except to the people who know what, “it went really well” actually means. Outside of this city, outside of this bubble, I might as well be describing a dream I had where I was almost famous, but then woke up and had to go to Trader Joe’s. (Something I deal with often when I eat before bed.)

I could tell my friends that my short film, A King’s Curtain, won Best Film at seven top festivals. I could say that sentence out loud with pride and emphasis and a small flourish of the hand, like a magician revealing a dove. And they would say, that is amazing, with the exact same tone they use when I tell them I tried a new Pilates class. They do not know what that means. They do not know the years. They do not know the self tapes filmed against a beige wall at eleven forty seven at night. They do not know the open mics where three men named Craig stared at me while chewing nachos. They do not know what it feels like when a casting director calls you back and your bloodstream turns into sparkling water. They do not know that a manager believing in you is rarer than love and almost as intimate. My writing manager and me have been through so much together. SO. MUCH. He could and probably SHOULD be a bridesmaid at this point…if that day comes.

They do not know that a meeting with producers is like being invited to prom by the popular kids, except you are also fully aware you could be Carrie, and the bucket is already positioned above the door.

So what do I do with this? How do you celebrate something that might dissolve? How do you say, “I think my life is changing”, without sounding like someone who has started a cult, when it might statistically not change at all? Because this is the specific psychological torture of being an artist. You are always in a pre-celebration limbo. You are perpetually pregnant with a thing that may never be born. No one knows how to throw you a baby shower for a fetus made of emails.

I find myself wanting to grab my friends by the face and say, you do not understand. This is big. This is huge! This is what I have been working toward for years. This is the part where the montage music starts swelling. But to them, nothing has happened yet. There is no poster. No premiere. No podcast in their feed. Just me, vibrating in a coffee shop after a meeting, trying not to look like someone who is either about to become famous or cry in public.

And maybe the real problem is that I do not know how to validate my own progress without external proof. Because this industry trains you to only celebrate outcomes and not momentum. But momentum is where I am living right now. Momentum is the fact that I am meeting people who see me. Momentum is my manager saying, they get it. They really get it. Momentum is that I am starting to make friends who do not look at me like I am describing a hobby when I describe my career. Momentum is the feeling that I have stepped into a new chapter of the world, and the air feels different here.

And I am terrified to enjoy it. Because what if it all goes wrong? What if everyone actually hates me? What if this is the Carrie prom scene, and I am dancing under a disco ball made of delusion? So instead of celebrating, I hover. I wait for proof. I wait for the pig blood to be hit on my face. I wait to see if I’m allowed to feel proud.

And layered into all of this is something even stranger that I do not know how to explain to people. I come from Boise, Idaho. I moved to Utah. Then Georgia. Then New York. Then Chicago. Then Atlanta. And now I’m in Los Angeles. I travel constantly on top of everything else I do. I make sure I am a local hire anywhere because I get booked more that way. I know the airports better than I know most neighborhoods. I know how to pack a life into a carry on. I know how to film a self tape in a hotel room with a lamp and a prayer. I know which cities have the cheapest food…and which have the best ice-cream.

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And you cannot explain that to someone. You cannot explain every step you have taken, every survival job, every diet you tried, every class you paid for instead of groceries, every night you chose an open mic over a party, every morning you woke up before dawn to write because you were terrified of wasting time. You cannot explain the geography of a dream. You cannot explain the mileage. Even right now! It’s a Saturday night and here I am….writing like Carrie Bradshaw and memorizing lines for my show.

When people ask me what the dream is, I never know how to answer, because the dream has changed so much and not at all. I make things. I make very good things. That is the dream. It used to be, “I want to be an actor.” Then it was, I want to be a writer. Then it was, I want to make my own work. Then it was, I want to do all of it. And for a long time people told me I was scattered. You need to pick one thing. You need to focus. You need to be marketable. When I was little I ran up to my Mom after a show and said, “I just love those bright lights!” And ain’t that the truth? I still love them bright ass lights.

And then you see people like Richard Gadd and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and suddenly the industry is applauding the exact thing you were once told was a flaw. Suddenly being many things is the job. Suddenly the skill is not specialization but synthesis.

And honestly, I think every industry is like this now. I do not know one person with a single job anymore. Everyone is freelancing. Everyone has a side thing. Everyone is hustling in some corner of their life to survive this economy and this chaos and this strange modern reality where stability feels like a myth we were told in childhood. We are all building rafts out of whatever skills we have and hoping they float.

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So when someone asks me what I do, I never know where to begin. Do I start with the film? The show? The writing? The acting? The travel? The meetings? The open mics? The fact that I can be a local hire in half the country because I have simply existed in enough places long enough to belong nowhere and everywhere at once?

How do you summarize a life that has been built like this? How do you explain that none of it was random. None of it was wasted. Every city was a stepping stone. Every job was a survival tactic. Every weird pivot was actually a move toward the same thing.

I make things. I make very good things. That has always been the dream. And now I am in rooms where people are starting to see that too. Which is wonderful. Which is terrifying. Which feels like standing on the edge of something that might be a cliff or might be a stage.

And I still do not know how to celebrate it. But I think maybe this is what counts. Not the outcome or proof. Not the poster or the premiere or the podcast that may or may not exist.

Maybe what counts is that after all the miles and all the cities and all the versions of me that existed along the way, I am finally in the part of the story where things are starting to turn. And even if no one else understands what that means, I do. Because this is the first time in my life that the dream is no longer ahead of me.

I am standing inside it.

P.S. If around May 9th I’ll be at the Indie Film LA. I’ve been nominated for Best Supporting Actress for A King’s Curtain. P.S. we just won best film at Phoenix Film Festival!

TICKET INFO

Address - Regal LA Live, 1000 West Olympic Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90015.

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Allison Dayne is a Los Angeles-based Equity actor, writer, and comedian. She wrote and stars in the upcoming short film A King’s Curtain, which will be released this year. The film features a cast that includes Austin Pendleton, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Veanne Cox. A King’s Curtain just won BEST DRAMA at the LA FILM SHORTS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL and BURBANK INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL as well as AMT INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL.

She recently performed at the sold out show Baby Bumps at Crow Comedy in Los Angeles. She is currently training at both the Groundlings program and Upright Citizens Brigade, continuing to develop her skills in comedy and improvisation. She previously studied at Second City and has modeled across the country.

Her work spans film, theater, and comedy, with a focus on creating original content and performing across multiple platforms.

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TED TALK

TikTok

Voyage LA Article

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I read the CNN investigation people started calling the “online rape academy” story and felt something stranger than shock. It was recognition. Not of the specifics. I had no idea forums like that allegedly existed, where men traded advice about drugging partners and sharing recordings of assault like it was a hobby you could optimize. I recognized the feeling of reading it. The feeling was, oh s***, this is what we were never supposed to see. And immediately after, what am I supposed to do with this information?

Because the article ends and your coffee is still on the table and the world outside your window looks exactly the same. Nothing has changed except now you know something you cannot unknow. Somewhere, in corners of the internet you will never visit, there are people who normalize harm through community. And your brain does a very specific dance when it meets a fact like that. It starts negotiating with reality. Surely this is exaggerated. Surely this is wrong. Surely this is rare! Surely this is being misunderstood. Because if you let yourself fully accept it, you hit a much scarier thought. How long have I been moving through the world assuming a level of safety that was never guaranteed?

I went to an academy award screening of short films in 2020 and one particular film has stayed with me ever since. It was directed by Tadeusz Łysiak and it was called The Dress. The log line of the film is: A woman with limited hopes toils in a rundown motel in rural Poland, as a maid. Will the repeated visits of an interesting man, a truck driver, change the loneliness of her situation? Well…spoiler alert to the film….but a man pretends to be in love with the lead woman named Julka who is also a little person, and she keeps saying in the film she, “just wants to be a woman.” And you initially take that as she wants to be “normal height” and other bluntly ignorant thoughts. Well, the man takes her on a date and viciously rapes her and throws her out a car. She walks back to the hotel she is working at and a co-worker asks her how the date went and she says, “I finally felt like a woman” and it ends.

The Dress Trailer

I know this is super strange to remember….but that film is what I thought of when reading about this and making my next episode of Rage Bait on my YouTube channel. What does it mean to be a woman. What does it mean to be alive. Julka in the film did not feel like a woman until she was attacked. That is a very dark film…but why do I remember this film over thousands I have seen? I know many of my friends who have been attacked. I know many flight attendants who have been assaulted on their overnights. I know stories because I listen. I do not share their names or information as that is their story to tell but I cannot help but sit in the silence of these facts and think. I’m a damn good artist and writer and I have a voice…might as well use it.

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The hardest part of reading reporting like this is not the story itself. It is the aftermath. It is how every past moment quietly rearranges itself. Every time someone stood too close to you. Every time you talked yourself out of a weird feeling. Every time you decided you were being dramatic. Every time you chose politeness over instinct. Suddenly those memories feel louder. Not because the world has become more dangerous in a single day, but because you have new language for things you already sensed.

And it is important here not to let your brain run to either extreme. Not to minimize it so you can feel calm again. Not to catastrophize it so you feel like nothing is safe. The truth sits in the middle and it is steadier than either panic or denial. Most people are not predators. Some people absolutely are. The internet did not invent them. It gave them each other. That is the part that is destabilizing.

We are used to thinking of predators as isolated, rare, lone figures. This reporting suggests something harder to hold. Predators can form community. They can normalize each other. They can trade tactics. They can remove the friction of shame by seeing other people do the same thing. That is what makes your nervous system light up. Not the headline. The realization that harm can be socially reinforced in hidden spaces. In your marriage. In your relationship. What the f***!

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So what do we do with that knowledge without becoming afraid of everyone we pass on the street….try to date…fall in love with…trust? We allow it to update us without consuming us. We let it validate something many people and survivors have always known but often doubted. Your instincts were right more often than you were taught to believe. That weird feeling you talked yourself out of. That discomfort you dismissed because you did not want to be rude. That moment you overrode your gut to be polite. You were not dramatic. You were perceptive.

Community makes bad people bolder. Your intuition is a survival tool, not a personality flaw. The takeaway is not that the world is full of monsters. The takeaway is that you are allowed to trust your perception sooner.

Processing this information is less about memorizing what the article said and more about giving yourself permission to move differently. You are allowed to leave early without explanation. You are allowed to share your location with a friend even if it feels excessive. You are allowed to be cautious on dates. You are allowed to ask questions. You are allowed to be thought of as difficult, skeptical, guarded, and still be a kind person. The story also quietly asks something else of us. To look at how easily we have been trained to distrust our own discomfort. How often we have been told to be agreeable, accommodating, easy. How frequently we have internalized the idea that safety is paranoia. It is not. It is awareness.

And then there is the trust question. The part that lingers after you close the tab. How do I trust anyone after reading this?! The answer is not to stop trusting. The answer is to redefine what trust actually is. Trust is not blind. Trust is built slowly, contextually, over time. Trust is something people earn through consistency. You are allowed to give trust in layers instead of all at once.

Silence protects predators. Conversation protects people. Education protects people. Listening to survivors protects people. Demanding accountability from platforms and institutions protects people.

If reading about this brought up anything personal for you, or if you feel shaken in a way that is hard to name, support exists outside my personal thoughts and essay.

In the United States, you can contact RAINN at 800-656-HOPE or chat via rainn.org for confidential support.

You can also call or text 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline if you need immediate emotional help.

If you are outside the U.S., the International Association of Sexual Assault Centers can help you find local resources in your country.

What do we do with a story like this? We do not turn away. We do not let it turn into a meme! We discuss this with our partners. We ask questions. We talk to our children. We have uncomfortable talks that protect our future. Some people are capable of terrible things. Most people are not. I’ve down many public talks on this subject and am passionate about victims rights. Dear reader…if no one told you today. I’m proud of you. I love you. I see you. I validate you. And guess what?! You’re allowed to protect yourself without apology.

Allison Dayne is a Los Angeles-based Equity actor, writer, and comedian. She wrote and stars in the upcoming short film A King’s Curtain, which will be released this year. The film features a cast that includes Austin Pendleton, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Veanne Cox. A King’s Curtain just won BEST DRAMA at the LA FILM SHORTS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL and BURBANK INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL as well as AMT INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL.

She recently performed at the sold out show Baby Bumps at Crow Comedy in Los Angeles. She is currently training at both the Groundlings program and Upright Citizens Brigade, continuing to develop her skills in comedy and improvisation. She previously studied at Second City and has modeled across the country.

Her work spans film, theater, and comedy, with a focus on creating original content and performing across multiple platforms.

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This is the story of how a Chanel girl ended up in a dirt field, why thousands of adults willingly put on corsets in 97-degree heat, and why I think the Renaissance faire might be one of the healthiest places in modern America.

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On the drive there, I made a list for my friends of things I hoped would happen at the faire:

1. Pet a dragon

2. Meet a hobbit

3. Solve a riddle that grants me everlasting life

4. Have someone duel for my honor

We laughed because obviously none of this would occur. This is suburban California, not The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. And yet, the most impossible one is the one I accomplished. A performer walked by operating a massive, beautifully made dragon puppet. He stayed completely in character as I, in warrior paint, gently stroked the dragon’s snout like this was a normal adult interaction. I have never felt more emotionally correct.

Renaissance fairs began in the 1960s as educational pageants. Teachers wanted history to feel immersive instead of academic. The first large faire in California was staged as a way for people to experience Elizabethan England rather than read about it. Over time, the educational pageant evolved into something much stranger and much better: a subculture built around theatrical sincerity. The key word is sincerity.

No one at a Renaissance faire is being ironic. No one is too cool. Thousands of adults collectively agree to suspend reality for a day and commit to the bit with the craftsmanship of Broadway costume designers. This is not Halloween. This is devotion.

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We went on the busiest, hottest day of the season. My Senua costume, designed for moody Nordic vengeance, was now being worn in direct California sun. The leather began to fuse to my body. My makeup started migrating south. No one complained. Because once you’re inside, you realize this is Disneyland for people whose favorite movie is The Lord of the Rings and whose inner child never got bullied out of loving it.

Blacksmiths hammer swords. Armory tents display blades so beautiful you briefly consider changing careers. Corsets, goblets, leatherwork, fairy wings with structural integrity. A queen processes through the crowd and people genuinely bow. Not for Instagram. Not as a joke. Just because we all agreed this was real today.

You start talking to people and discover the sword juggler is a doctor. The woodland nymph works in accounting. The pirate is a software engineer. Everyone here has a normal life. And everyone here has an inner artist begging to come out. The faire is where they let it.

For people with emails and deadlines and commutes, this is the one place they get to be theatrical without apology. Dramatic without explanation. Earnest without a wink to camera. As someone who gets paid to play people, I recognized the relief immediately. This is group therapy with corsets.

Now then…we need to discuss the prices! Let’s say you want to go to one. Things get expensive very quickly. A turkey leg is $21. To be fair, it is enormous. It is a full meal. It is also being eaten entirely for the aesthetic. A swing ride is $5. Everything is cash. Only cash.

You walk around pulling damp twenties out of a pouch, paying for vibes and mead like you are tipping performers at a gentlemen’s club. It is a phenomenal business model and also deeply disorienting. If I were in charge, you would tap your card at the entrance and receive a pouch of beautiful medieval coins. Then you spend those all day like a time traveling heiress. If we are committing to the bit, let us commit.

Instead, you are dressed like a Viking, sweating through leather, counting cash. So if you go, bring cash. So much cash. When people learned it was my first faire, they gasped with delight. “A virgin!” Corseted women were thrilled for me. Strangers wanted me to have the best experience. I have never been welcomed into a community so quickly. It felt like joining a secret society of people who know how to have fun correctly.

The booths are filled with handmade goods from real artists. If you truly love something, buy it and support them. But don’t impulse buy your way into medieval debt. My mom had a trick when we couldn’t afford something. We would take a photo of ourselves with the item and put it in a scrapbook. Emotionally, it felt like we bought it. And honestly, that’s all we’re chasing anyway. The feeling of having experienced it.

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While this was happening, Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival was also happening. Soon, Stagecoach Festival will take over the desert. Different costumes. Same desire. We all want a temporary identity. A summer glow. A place to be someone else for a day. At Coachella, you’re in a luxury tent seeing pop stars. At the faire, you’re petting a dragon puppet in a dirt field. And I realized, without irony, my heart belongs to the dirt field.

I am not good at having fun when I haven’t hit my career goals. I am the person who thinks joy must be earned through productivity. Spending a day in the sun with thousands of joyful nerds pretending it’s 1542 did something to my nervous system. It reminded me that play is not a reward. It’s a requirement. You have to let every part of your soul out sometimes. Even the part that wants to wear face paint and pet a dragon.

If you see a Renaissance faire near you, go. Bring cash. Eat the turkey leg. Let the corseted women welcome you as a virgin. Accept that you are entering a subculture of people who love nerdy, theatrical joy with their whole chest. I wish I were a Coachella girl. I would love the tents, the outfits, the posts.

But apparently, I am a woman who goes to a dirt field in warrior paint and achieves her lifelong dream of petting a dragon.

Huzzah!

P.S. Latest projects coming up!

I’ve been cast in a short film entitled, “The Best King of Stranger.” Logline - A distant sister seeks to reconnect with her brother-in-law after the death of her beloved Big brother.

I started a YouTube Channel - Rage Bait Comedy. Subscribe if you want to get mad with me! Rage Bait Comedy

A King’s Curtain just went to Cleveland International Film Festival and Pasadena Film Festival.

Allison Dayne is a Los Angeles-based Equity actor, writer, and comedian. She wrote and stars in the upcoming short film A King’s Curtain, which will be released this year. The film features a cast that includes Austin Pendleton, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Veanne Cox. A King’s Curtain just won BEST DRAMA at the LA FILM SHORTS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL and BURBANK INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL as well as AMT INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL.

She recently performed at the sold out show Baby Bumps at Crow Comedy in Los Angeles. She is currently training at both the Groundlings program and Upright Citizens Brigade, continuing to develop her skills in comedy and improvisation. She previously studied at Second City and has modeled across the country.

Her work spans film, theater, and comedy, with a focus on creating original content and performing across multiple platforms.

IMDB

INSTAGRAM

TED TALK

TikTok

Voyage LA Article

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And I said yes before I even asked what it was, because Elyse is one of those actors who is always in something…a film, a play, a reading, a class…and she has the heaviest burden to hold as an artist…she has taste. She is booked, busy, and somehow still generous enough to drag her friends into art!

So we went to The Antaeus Company in North Hollywood to see All My Sons by Arthur Miller, directed by Oánh Nguyễn.

And I need you to understand: this was my first time being back in a theater in a long time. Like sit-down, lights-dim, program-in-hand, hush-your-mouth theater. And my body remembered before my brain did. This is my favorite human ceremony.

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The play opens on a backyard in post–World War II America. You’ve got the porch, a broken tree and classic iced-tea. If you don’t know the play…spoiler arts ahead. To be fair the play was written in 1947. You’ve had time. Now I am a firm believer that you can’t spoil a play. You study a play and then you see the play. Completely different experiences.

Point being…The Keller family looks like the picture of American normal. Joe Keller is a successful businessman. His wife Kate is deeply devoted and slightly unhinged in the way only grief can make you. Their son Larry went missing in the war and Kate refuses to believe he’s dead. Their other son, Chris, survived the war and came home with something most people didn’t…. a conscience that won’t shut up.

Chris wants to marry Ann. Ann used to date Larry. The drama! Ann is also the daughter of Joe Keller’s former business partner, the one who went to prison during the war. And you don’t know why yet. You just know the air in this backyard is weird. Everyone is polite and everyone is lying. Slowly, the truth starts to leak out like a gas you don’t smell at first. During the war, Joe Keller’s factory made airplane parts. A batch came out cracked. Dangerous. If they were shipped, pilots could die. Joe made the decision to send them anyway. Twenty-one pilots died. (Yikes.)

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When it was discovered, Joe claimed he was sick that day and his partner took the blame. His partner went to jail. Joe stayed home. Kept the business. Kept the house. Kept the American Dream landscaping. And the entire play is this agonizing unraveling of how a family survives when the foundation is: we chose ourselves over everyone else.

Chris slowly realizes what his father did. And this is where the play turns from a family drama into a moral interrogation. Because Chris isn’t just upset his dad did something illegal. He’s upset his dad did something unforgivable.

Chris says, in essence: Those pilots were my brothers. I fought with men like them. You didn’t just kill strangers. You killed my people.

Joe says: I did it for you. For this family. So we could survive. And there it is. The line that has been sitting on my chest ever since: “There’s a universe of people outside and you’re responsible to it.” Joe Keller does not believe that. Chris Keller cannot live without believing that. That’s the war of the play. And here’s what destroyed me: Bo Foxworth as Joe Keller.

Because he didn’t play him like a monster. He played him like a dad. A great dad! Who's charming and funny and relatable. The kind of man you want to sit next to at Thanksgiving. The kind of man who loves his kids. The kind of man who would absolutely say, “I did this for my family,” and mean it. And you find yourself liking him. Which is the trap.

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Because if you like him, you have to ask yourself the most uncomfortable question of all: How far would I go to protect my own tiny porch? Would I justify something awful if it meant I got to keep my life intact? Would I convince myself I’m still a good person? That’s what this play does. It doesn’t let you sit comfortably in judgment. It forces you into recognition.

And sitting there with Elyse, I kept thinking about how heavy the idea of community has been on my heart lately. How easy it is right now to feel overwhelmed and small and just want to focus on your own survival. Your rent. Your career. Your little square of safety.

Joe Keller is the extreme version of that instinct. And Chris is the voice saying: That instinct, left unchecked, is deadly. The play ends in a way that you know is coming but still feels like getting hit by a truck. Joe is finally forced to understand that the pilots who died were not “other people.” They were his sons too. All my sons. And he cannot live with that.

The run is over now. I’m so grateful I got to see it when I did. So grateful to Elyse for the generosity. For reminding me that theater is where you go to be told the truth in a way that doesn’t let you look away.

Because the play didn’t give me answers. It gave me questions that are still following me around. Does knowing this make us do better? Or does it just make us tired? What do we actually owe people we will never meet? And how do we live in a way where we don’t lie to ourselves about the answer?

There is something chemical that happens when you watch strong performances live. When you watch people commit fully to a story that matters. When language that was written decades ago lands like it was written for tonight.

Classical theater, when it’s done well, does not feel old. It’s on the artists to make you love these stories…a heavy burden we have. What a joy to have a purpose.

You can feel it rearranging things in your brain. Slowing your thoughts down. Sharpening them at the same time. Reminding you what it feels like to pay attention for two straight hours without looking at a screen or thinking about your to-do list or your own problems.

I walked in feeling tired and buzzy and overwhelmed. I walked out feeling inspired. Like someone had wiped a foggy mirror and said, “Here. Look.”

And I love it. I love how much watching great actors on a stage can change your actual nervous system. How witnessing a truly good play can alter your mood in a way that self-care, scrolling, podcasts, and errands simply cannot. It’s not distraction. It’s alignment. It’s remembering that art is not a luxury.

And I left thinking: I need to do this more. Sit in the dark. Watch masters at work. Let a story crack me open a little bit. Because apparently, sometimes the thing that fixes your brain is a 1947 play about a man on a porch who thought his world was small enough to manage. Brava Antaeus! Brava to the cast, crew and audience who demands better of themselves.

When’s the last time you saw a great play? Tell me in the comments.

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If want to see a production by this incredible theater…here is the website! Go!

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Upcoming Performances By Yours Truly:

April 8th - Stand-Up Set -

April 15th - Sketch Comedy Show - 8:00

Show Info

Allison Dayne is a Los Angeles-based Equity actor, writer, and comedian. She wrote and stars in the upcoming short film A King’s Curtain, which will be released this year. The film features a cast that includes Austin Pendleton, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Veanne Cox. A King’s Curtain just won BEST DRAMA at the LA FILM SHORTS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL and BURBANK INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL as well as AMT INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL.

She recently performed at the sold out show Baby Bumps at Crow Comedy in Los Angeles. She is currently training at both the Groundlings program and Upright Citizens Brigade, continuing to develop her skills in comedy and improvisation. She previously studied at Second City and has modeled across the country.

Her work spans film, theater, and comedy, with a focus on creating original content and performing across multiple platforms.

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