Vienna Ayla is leading the theatre kid renaissance

“I come from an incredibly creative family,” Vienna Ayla explains to me from her sunny LA apartment. She is as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as she is in all her videos, even at 10:45am. “My mom’s family is from Italy. Her dad immigrated to New York in like 1905 and bought two buildings downtown that my entire family still live in together. He ran a restaurant from the bottom floor where all the waiters sang opera, but people quickly realised they didn’t want to be screamed at while they ate food, which is strange to me because I think that sounds like a good time.”

Raised in that same building in New York, the writer, director and actor has a dedicated following on TikTok, where she has amassed 1.1 million followers at the time of publication. She is best known for the multitude of characters she plays on TikTok, from the mob boss’s wife, the ride-or-die friend, the personality hire, to the theatre kid roommate. You name it, Alya has played it. “The best feeling I’ve ever had has come from acting… I have worked so hard to be in this place where I’m writing, directing and acting my own work out of all the judgments around influencing and social media. I’m so proud of that, and in so many ways, I’m living my dream.”

We spoke to the actress about where she finds inspiration for her characters, the transformative power of the theatre, and how grateful she is for the internet.

How long have you been making skits online, and why did you start? 

Vienna Ayla: It has been just about four years, exactly. I posted my first video in February 2020, and I started because I was auditioning in New York, and I had just gotten a role in a play that I was so excited about, and then the play got indefinitely cancelled, as so many things did because of COVID-19. I remember seeing people posting on TikTok, and I was like, ‘I could do that’. It was such a weird thing because I could tell once I started that it was going to be a big thing for me and become a massive part of my life. I knew the most challenging part would be starting, so I remember talking to many people and then eventually forcing myself to do it; then I started posting with a friend. I began to pay attention to the algorithm and what my audience wanted to see. TikTok was such a different place back then. It was like the Wild West. So I’ve been at it for a while, which is surreal. 

Your skits are so funny and so relatable. Where do you find inspiration for them? There is something so recognisable in the women you caricature.

Vienna Ayla: Apart from my family who have inspired so much of my work, I learned how to play a character going into high school. I went to this very preppy New England boarding school, where I clocked all these archetypes, and in those four years, I played a lot of different characters. I learned how to dissociate from myself, maybe in an unhealthy way. Still, I also learned to recognise these little things about people and how we all feel most comfortable in specific performances. Then I went to a liberal arts college, which blew everything up. I remember coming out of my freshman year, I was wound so tight. I knew how to be this perfect example of a young woman, and that slowly started to crack wide open. 

I feel like a lot of the inspiration came from the fact that we, as women, all speak this language of knowing the behaviour that society expects and wants from us. In the past, I’ve felt more embarrassed being dramatic, loud, and outspoken - but it’s more fun to exist that way and in those archetypes. That’s where I like to create from - those parts of ourselves that we feel the most ashamed of. The parts of ourselves that tell the truth, are loud and relatable. I love watching stuff like that. It’s so satisfying that you can feel it in your stomach. That’s my favourite thing to play with.

@viennaayla

or we forget it exists there’s no inbetween 🫶

♬ original sound - vienna ❤️‍🔥

What did you study at college? 

Vienna Ayla: I studied theatre. 

I knew it! One of my questions was based on your ‘POV: your roommate is a theatre kid’ TikTok video (one of my favourites) because so many of your characters feel like Rachel Berry from Glee on crack. 

Vienna Ayla: I went to a liberal arts college in Connecticut called Wesleyan, and honestly, theatre was an accident. I wanted to do Italian, or when I got in there, I thought I was going to be a politician. When it came time to go abroad, I wanted to go to this conservatory in London and by the time I finished that, I just wanted to take poetry classes and do weird plays with my friends. I realised that being a theatre major is the path of least resistance. Looking back, college was the best thing ever for my career because it was such a creative environment. You could do whatever you want and call it art. It allowed me to find my own voice. I was in such denial about being a theatre major; I was like, ‘I couldn’t possibly say yes,’ but I did.

I think we are seeing a theatre kid renaissance, or as the podcast Nymphet Alumni argued, the destigmatisation of theatre kid energy. Have you seen the film Theatre Camp? 

Vienna Ayla: Yes, it was so good. That movie captures much of what I like to create and consume on social media. It’s so viscerally relatable, like when they were smelling the throat tea like it was a drug, and the boy was like, ‘Oh no, this is authentic.’ It was so funny. I love this era we’re in now of not being ashamed of being theatre kids.

There’s something so wonderful about theatre – the way it makes you feel and the bonds you make when you spend time performing with someone. People love to make comments about Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar Jones’ relationship, about how they’re too close and their relationship has to be more than just a friendship. It made me realise that people don’t understand how acting expands your understanding of love and loving. 

Vienna Ayla: I think that that love you’re talking about in theatre changes you when you experience it. I feel like my experiences in theatre have changed my definition of family. It’s a feeling that you chase again and again throughout your life, and when you grow up, you often lose that. It’s a privilege to have an adult existence where you get to keep doing that. That’s my dream, that feeling of family and creativity and – forgive me for the cheesiness but – playing pretend. That’s the stuff. That’s magic; that’s exciting to me. When you haven’t grown up doing that, how you perceive things changes. You just don’t get it.

Do you have any filmic influences behind your skits and characters?

Vienna Ayla: The biggest thing I’ve been exploring for the last few months is mockumentary. There is something fascinating about turning this very recognisable structure on its head. Nothing makes me laugh more than those little asides where the characters are speaking directly to the camera in sheer honesty. I think because I’ve been in very theatrical spaces, from working in the service industry to going to liberal arts school and even my buttoned-up boarding school, I sometimes think in mockumentary. You’re just saying the quiet part or thing you’re thinking out loud. I love everything in that style.

I love What We Do In The Shadows, and I like Modern Family and The Office. What’s cool about those little bites of episodic television is that you can jump into them and know nothing about the characters, but it’s still so funny. That’s kind of what I’m trying to mimic with my videos. I think that kind of style takes a bit more buy-in from the viewer, and that’s something that I’ve tried to earn a lot for the past two and a half years. Our attention spans aren’t great, so I’m trying to earn my viewer’s attention for longer videos. Making strides in that department is probably the thing I’m most proud of.

@viennaayla pulling her weight her own way 🫶 #personalityhire ♬ original sound - vienna ❤️‍🔥

One of your videos that I always see floating around the internet is your personality hire videos. Where did this character come from?

Vienna Ayla: What I love about the character is that I’ve met many people who are like, ‘This is who I am.’ You can instantly recognise this person among your peers. I’ve also loved that people in the comments have been going to bat for her, arguing that this person is essential to the workplace ecosystem. I joke that I get hired despite my personality because I’m so annoying and on the book. But I think someone has said that to me before, and I was like, ‘OK, this is something I want to play with because I know that girl.’ I’ve definitely met her before, and maybe I’ve dipped into being her at times. So, the idea came from wanting to play with characters that we all can instantly recognise and that we can instantly recognise within ourselves.

Paige, Caroline and I joke whenever we do the personality hire video because I’ll tell them, ‘OK, your job is to tell me the client needs the product today,’ and they’re like, ‘Where do we work? Who is our client?’ I’m like, ‘I don’t know!’ We’re using this jargon that we don’t fully understand. But I think there’s always a place for being silly in any environment. So I feel like the personality hire character also symbolises a challenge to myself not to take things too seriously.

Yeah, there’s always time to be silly. Why not on the clock?

Vienna Ayla: When I get paid for it! Exactly.

Beyond the internet, what are your dreams and aspirations?

Vienna Ayla: I want to be on set a lot more, working in film, TV and theatre. The more experience I get with that, the better my content becomes. I just shot my first traditional commercial, which on the surface is very traditional, but they knew my work, which was so nice, and they let me improv pretty much the entire shoot. The final cut is largely improv, and them being open to that, knowing my voice as a creator and encouraging me felt so good. I think that’s the future, and I feel very excited to have a place in it. I’m very excited, and I’m so thankful for the internet for giving me that.