Alison Rampa: An Improv Life
Alison Rampa knows something about setting a scene. Entering her mid-century modern home with twinkle lights and books lining the shelves in her family room, jazz music playing quietly in the background, and candles lit all over, it felt like a scene in a movie. With Alison’s infectious laugh and the smell of coffee in the air, we felt immediately at home as we sat down for a chat about her life and work as a middle school English teacher, leader of a women’s theater company, and founder of a body-positive summer camp for adult women.
Interview by Katherine Ducey. Photography by Angie Lipscomb.
Tell us about yourself.
I started as an improv actor when I was in college and have been doing it ever since – it’s the thing I love to do for fun. I know I've talked to Women of Cincy with OTRimprov before, and also with Two Sketchy Dames, which is my sketch comedy troupe. We've [Two Sketchy Dames] been to Detroit, Louisville, and Gatlinburg. In Gatlinburg, we got to perform at Sweet Fanny Adams Theatre. I went there when I was a little girl, and I remember saying, "One day, I want to be an actress on this stage," and then I got to play there before it closed. They were a family owned theater for years and years.
So you did theater growing up, did you do theater all through high school and college?
I did theater all through high school and I did improv in college [at Miami University]. They only cast theater majors in theater productions in college so I did community theater here and there. I was in the Tower Players improv troupe in Oxford, Ohio, back in the day. We would go and perform under the tower. And that's what I did all through college. They took us to Chicago, and we did stuff with Second City there.
Do you think in another life, you might have made it as a writer on SNL?
Maybe, if I had a stronger stomach. But I always wanted to be a teacher and I met my now-husband when I was 13. I thought I could still do these things I want to do in Cincinnati. You just have to make your own way, and really it's much easier to make your own way in Cincinnati. There's not as much competition, but the comedy scene is legit here. Honestly, it's been heartening to see post-pandemic comedy come back – because there are no ArtsWave grants for us. We don't have a board, we don't have angel donors. There's no system like that built around comedy. There are just people going and doing it – it's hard out there!
So you’ve been a performer for a long time, and you always wanted to be a teacher?
Yes, I had a really formative high school drama and English teacher. When I was there, I thought, “I want your job,” and it’s been my focus since high school. And now I’m a teacher at Cincinnati Public Schools, at the Spencer Center for the Gifted and Exceptional – which sounds like my students should be lifting things with their minds, but they haven't yet, which is very disappointing! [laughs]
I teach 7th and 8th grade English. We're reading The Lightning Thief right now, and I told [my students] "You all need to get into this world and then you will never want for a book again." That's one of my things [as a teacher] – matchmaking kids with books. It’s not that you're a bad reader, you just don't like reading because you haven't found the right book yet.
So you're a teacher by day but that’s not all – tell me about some of the other things that you do.
So I did improv for a really long time, and I really liked doing it, but I started to think, “I'm a mom now, if I leave the house, I probably need to be bringing something back,” and well, improv doesn't pay…anything. I love doing it and god bless the people who do come out to it, but it's really hard to sell tickets. But do you know what's an easy sell? Murder mysteries! People love murder mysteries.
I found out that Emily [Widolff] was doing a Golden Girls Murder Mystery night as a fundraiser for End The Backlog and I was like, “Why didn't I think of this?” So I messaged her [to get involved] and we did the first one. I played Blanche and we did it at the Brew House [in East Walnut Hills] and we sold out. Everytime we did it, it sold out, so we just kept doing it. [Emily] was working at Syndicate in Newport so we had a monthly show there for years. Sometimes we'd sell 50 tickets and sometimes we'd sell 150 tickets. It just depended on the month. We did the same show each time…but then the pandemic happened. We started figuring out how to do the plays in a safe way as things started coming back and [although Emily decided to step back], we have become the Queen City Murder Mystery Company, a woman-owned immersive theater company making murder mysteries for women by women.
You know, Amy Poehler said that you just have to write your own parts, so that’s what I do. I write all the plays myself. It has been a great lesson for my students because I can show them that you can take your writing and go make a thing! It can happen. We do pop culture murder mysteries now – not just Golden Girls, but Hocus Pocus during Halloween time, Hallmark murder mysteries during Christmas, and Bridgerton in the spring! It's super fun and people dress up. For the Bridgerton one, the people dressed up in Regency Era costumes! “I was like guys, your costumes are better than ours, go home!” People seem to really, really like it and the demand has been crazy.
I'm just really fortunate that I found my niche. Like, I'm going to make murder mysteries for ladies starring ladies, that's it, that's all I'm going to do. Other people aren't going to write the parts for you and it's not like I'm going to become more of an ingénue as I get older, I never was! I'm only going to become more of a character actress as I get older, so I might as well make my own stuff.
That's so exciting, so who is a woman who inspires you?
Aubrey Gordon is the female host of a podcast called Maintenance Phase and she is also a fat activist and a writer. She has definitely been inspirational to me. She puts into words all the things that I've felt but had no scientific evidence for. She has a book called "You Just Need to Lose Weight" And 19 Other Myths About Fat People, and that's been super, super helpful in my journey, and helpful for me at my camp, Camp Roundup.
Of course, female comedians who write, produce and do all the things also inspire me: Amy Poehler, Melissa McCarthy, Aidy Bryant, and Tina Fey.
Tell me more about Camp Roundup.
Camp Roundup is one of the other things I do. It’s an adult summer camp experience for plus-sized ladies, and anybody else who is in a marginalized body and feels like they would connect with the experience.
I have been a fat gal my entire life – it's been a journey [for me] with my body. My first memory of being fat is from when I was 6 years old. I wanted to ride a pony but I was told I was too fat and it made me cry. The pony would have been fine, I was still just a child! I was a dancer when I was growing up. I loved dance and I loved performing, but I went from dance to theater because in theater I could be a character actress. In dance, I was just fat and in a leotard.
Then by the time I was getting married, I started going to Weight Watchers, and I reconnected with an old college friend, Erica Henry (Chiseck), there. We were both getting married around the same time, and we were both determined to lose weight for our weddings. Erica and I both went really hardcore and we both went insane. It really made my brain melt! I dropped a couple of dress sizes and all I have to show for it is a dress I can't wear anymore.
So, after doing all of that, I was like, “This is silly, I waste so much time thinking about dieting.” I didn't want to focus on that, there are too many other things in life. [I decided] my body does what it wants to do so I am just going to go with it and let it do what it wants to do.
[In January 2022,] Maintenance Phase did an episode about fat camps. I remembered watching a show on MTV that was about kids going to a fat camp. Parents would send their kids to fat camp and it'd be super restrictive and mentally abusive and they'd lose weight in the summer and then they'd gain it all back during the year and have to go back. It was a bummer, but they also made a lot of connections there and I thought, “What if we just took out the bad stuff and had a fat camp that celebrated all bodies and made people feel comfortable?” And then I saw the TV show Shrill with Aidy Bryant. They have this pool party and I remember watching that scene and crying, thinking, “What if we did a summer camp and we could have that pool party from Shrill for three days?” Then Erica called me up and asked if I had listened to that Maintenance Phase episode, and we were on the same page because she asked if we should make our own summer camp.
We started planning the camp in January 2022 and by September of that year, we were at camp! We had about 30 people the first year. We had pool parties and made friendship bracelets and ate cafeteria food. Rachel Wiley, a fat activist poet, came and read poetry. Everybody cried and we ate s’mores around the campfire. Then we went to bed and did it all again the next day. On the last night, we had a dance party. Erica and I couldn’t believe we made this happen! It was even a story on NPR! We had figured we'd do it again, and as soon as the NPR piece dropped, we sold out completely [for year two]. We're doing the third one this September.
[At camp,] we're about loving our bodies or being neutral about our bodies, not thinking about our bodies. Thinking about things that matter, things you can change, things that bring you joy. You know, people who have been to camp together still talk to each other and are friends! They go on road trips together and it's very cool.
What's the best advice you have received?
I just heard a really good piece of advice from Aubrey Gordon, and that’s to pass along compliments. If you hear someone talking about someone else, let 'em know! “So and so said something nice about you! You should know that.” It makes them feel good and makes you feel good even though you didn't really do anything. You're just passing something else along. So share the compliments, share the things that people say, especially when people aren't in the room.
Do you have any advice for younger people who are looking to get into work like yours, or advice for your younger self?
Just to do it! Nobody is special. These people who are out there doing things, they’re not better or smarter or kinder than you. You can just do it. There's literally nobody stopping you from doing those things and even if you can't do the big thing, find a smaller version of the thing you want to do, and make it happen. Don't be afraid to make things happen.
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