Ashley Sharma: Everybody Loves Ashley

Every­one has THAT friend. The friend who has a suc­cess­ful career. The one who pur­sues a real­ly fun hob­by. The one whose fam­i­ly makes The Wal­tons seem entire­ly unim­pres­sive. The one who every­one grav­i­tates to at the par­ty because she tells the fun­ni­est sto­ries, but she nev­er for­gets to invite you to tell your not-so-fun­ny sto­ries and tells you that yours was hilar­i­ous and gen­uine­ly makes you feel like you could be the next great Amer­i­can sto­ry­teller. The friend who also makes it all look effort­less and natural.

Ash­ley Shar­ma IS that friend. I need to begin by shar­ing that pri­or to record­ing the pod­cast, Shar­ma shared a recent expe­ri­ence of a neigh­bor knock­ing on her door about a fire in her back yard. With calm aplomb, she told the neigh­bor ​“hold on”, to which the neigh­bor pan­icked, until Shar­ma returned with a fire extin­guish­er. This is pre­cise­ly the calm you need in cas­es of emer­gency, or, as a crit­i­cal care nurse, which is Sharma’s cho­sen pro­fes­sion. When the world is set on fire, you need Shar­ma in your corner.

Cap City Com­e­dy Club and Moon­tow­er Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val reached that con­clu­sion very ear­ly on in Sharma’s com­e­dy career. Her first open mic was in the sum­mer of 2019, and by Feb­ru­ary 2020, she’d been invit­ed to host at Cap City and was invit­ed to per­form at Moon­tow­er. In April 2020. Need­less to say, Sharma’s rapid­ly ris­ing com­e­dy star came to a screech­ing halt in March of 2020. Unlike most of us who spent time learn­ing to make sour­dough bread, watch­ing Suits, or tack­ling the lat­est Tik­Tok chal­lenge, Shar­ma was lit­er­al­ly on the fore­front of the glob­al pan­dem­ic. As a crit­i­cal care nurse, it’s safe to say Shar­ma saw the pan­dem­ic from a very dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive than most of us, let alone any­one in the com­e­dy world.

Shar­ma con­fess­es to us that ​“every­thing I’ve ever done has been root­ed in chaos”. Work­ing five jobs while in nurs­ing school, launch­ing a nurs­ing career at the same time as launch­ing a com­e­dy career, being the best big sis­ter and daugh­ter in the world, it sounds like chaos, but it’s clear that Shar­ma thrives under pres­sure. She admit­ted that if she worked an eas­i­er nurs­ing job, she would take on an ambi­tious project of cre­at­ing a HAAM (Health Alliance for Austin Musi­cians) equiv­a­lent for the com­e­dy com­mu­ni­ty. A clear vio­la­tion of anoth­er con­fes­sion by Shar­ma: ​“I could be more pro­duc­tive if I rested.”

After the intense pan­dem­ic oblig­a­tions wound down for Shar­ma, she was able to resume her com­e­dy pur­suits and final­ly per­form at Moon­tow­er in the Fall of 2021 and every year since. Despite miss­ing the 2022 Cap City Fun­ni­est Per­son in Austin con­test (lis­ten for the most adorable excuse you’ll ever hear), she reached the semi­fi­nals in 2023. Cap City Com­e­dy Club con­tin­ues to call on Shar­ma to host and it hon­est­ly won’t be long before she’s head­lin­ing the Red Room, fea­tur­ing in the main room, head­lin­ing The Velv, and beyond. Her com­e­dy is sharp, wit­ty, and full of sur­pris­ing twists. 

You can wit­ness her com­e­dy chops on dis­play with Dan­ny Good­win and Andrew Mur­phy, on their co-host­ed pod­cast, Scum­ber­par­ty. Billed as a slum­ber par­ty for your ears, the trio talk about a movie, share a home­made snack, and tell a ghost sto­ry. Shar­ma fre­quent­ly deliv­ers dri­ve-by zingers that show off her quick reac­tion time and abil­i­ty to make her friends (and loy­al audi­ences) laugh. The pod­cast has added live shows to its reper­toire, includ­ing its live show debut at Moon­tow­er JFL Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val in 2023 with Austin friends gone big, Andrew Dis­mukes and Devon Walk­er from Sat­ur­day Night Live.

While her com­e­dy accom­plish­ments (all in under 5 years) are impres­sive, com­e­dy is the top­ic cov­ered the least in our con­ver­sa­tion. Shar­ma can’t help but talk about her friends, her par­ents (who snuck her in to the orig­i­nal Cap City Com­e­dy Club loca­tion to watch com­e­dy), nurs­ing, and Sivaan. Who is Sivaan you ask? Much like the con­clu­sion you’d reach by scrolling through her Insta­gram account, you’d think you’d stum­bled upon the lit­tle broth­er appre­ci­a­tion fan page, all curat­ed by an ador­ing big sis­ter. Shar­ma describes the reac­tions to her account as ​“oh, ​‘you have a lit­tle broth­er’. You can’t tell I do com­e­dy.” I was intro­duced to Ash­ley and Sivaan years ago when me and my son were mutu­al fans of The Lanalax Cor­po­ra­tion pod­cast and would often watch the online ver­sions togeth­er dur­ing the pan­dem­ic. Fast for­ward and we’re now both talk­ing about Sivaan and my son’s impend­ing high school grad­u­a­tions, col­lege appli­ca­tions, and interests.

There you have it, despite my attempts to talk about Sharma’s com­e­dy career, she brings it back to fam­i­ly, her friends, her pod­cast, her boyfriend of sev­er­al years (the afore­men­tioned and fel­low com­ic Dan­ny Good­win), her hero­ic pro­fes­sion, leav­ing you with the sense that com­e­dy and her notable accom­plish­ments as a young com­ic are just a cher­ry on top of her already great life. When I men­tion that she’s liv­ing a charmed life, she lights up and responds with ​“I’m hav­ing the best time right now. Even though I’m extreme­ly tired … it’s like I’m in heaven.” 

Fol­low Ashley

• Insta­gram — @dat_ash
  
• Youtube — youtube​.com/​A​s​h​l​e​y​S​harma

Fol­low Scumberparty

• Insta­gram — @scumberparty
  
• Youtube — youtube​.com/​S​c​u​m​b​e​r​party

Ash­ley can be seen and heard:

• SF Sketch­fest 2024!
• Scum­ber­par­ty Podcast
  
• Fre­quent­ly host­ing at Cap City Com­e­dy Club