Ask An Assistant: Grace King (Comedy Tour Manager Assistant)

Grace King

Comedy Tour Manager Assistant for Comedy Producer (Confidential)

Interviewed by Natia Compton, Script Reader at Confidential Nonprofit

Every assistant lives many lives. Self-made producer, screenwriter, & crochet artist, Grace King knows life's balancing act quite well.

Dive in to hear how King capitalized on an opportunity given to them in college at their student TV station to create a whole new life for themself in entertainment--  from PAing on MY BIG FAT FABULOUS LIFE to the children's television writers room.

Hi Grace! It’s great to interview someone who also grew up in what is known as a “fly-over” state. Let’s start off with a favorite question for creatives: What got you started in writing?

I always knew I wanted to be a writer, which is how the tale of every tortured writer begins. When I was four, I would dictate stories to my mom to write for me, and then I'd illustrate. In elementary school, I wrote children's books and novels about boys who didn't like me because I was too unique. (Turns out, I was bisexual-coded.) Then, in true Leo fashion, I started my acting career at church in the Children's Christmas Cantatas. From the first line I had in a school play as a mouse to playing a doll in a toy store, singing about how the Lord was better than Santa, I knew I was destined to be... a thespian.

Religion and rural areas can make it hard for queer and non-binary creatives to thrive. How did you manage to find acting opportunities despite the many barriers you faced?

I'm from Dunn, North Carolina, which, if you've heard of Dunn, you must have broken down on I-95 because there's no other explanation for coming to this one-horse town. And while my small town managed to win All-American City in 2013 (by which organization, I couldn't tell ya), when I was coming up, it was small, limited, and repressed. Up until 8th grade, I knew I'd be an actor. However, after many failed attempts to find representation while living in rural North Carolina, I realized there were more jobs for writers than there were for actors. So, my quest to become a T.V. writer began.

When we conducted our first information interview, I marveled at all of the jobs you found for yourself while still in North Carolina, including being a PA on MY BIG FAT FABULOUS LIFE. With so much effort to remove toxic work environments for production assistants thanks to IATSE, can you share what your experience was like as a PA?

Flash forward to college. Once I hit my junior year, I realized if I didn't act strategically, I'd be stuck in North Carolina forever. I didn't have a savings account going into college, and I didn't have parents who could put me up in a new city on a whim after I graduated. So I had to figure out how to get from Boone, North Carolina, to New York or LA. I knew I wanted to write, but I knew I'd be more valuable as a writer if I had a background in production. So I joined some Facebook groups, drove 2-3 hours between classes, and worked as a PA on reality shows in Charlotte, NC. My first PA job I landed while working as a background on the set of the Impractical Jokers movie (I make a cameo in the film, by the way. They zoom in on my face after Paula Abdul jumps off 12-foot-high scaffolding). My friend and I were working in Georgia, and we had to be in Charlotte the next morning by 6 AM for a 17-hour day. We wrapped at 11 PM, drove all night, and worked as a PA all day. Then, I was back on set as an extra the following Monday.

Your first writing credit came while you were still at Appalachian State University with UP LATE AP STATE and THIS IS APP TV. Can you tell us how you got to be the sole driving force in creating these student-produced shows?

I decided my first job after college would be in a comedy writers' room. And I knew I would only pull that off with professional production experience. As important as my college experience was, no one outside of school understood what my experience meant to me. With a $0 budget from the school, my friends and I started the first narrative and comedy programs for our university's local cable access channel. When I graduated, my friends made AppTV's first feature-length film. I passed on what I learned from my professional experience to my classmates while they taught me how to think like a comedian.

Our station manager garnered funding for our channel through the city when the university told him he wouldn't receive funding from the school. He trusted us and allowed us creative freedom, making it a safe place to make mistakes and a special place to grow. I wouldn't have gotten that experience had I gone to a school with a large film program. At Appalachian, my friends and I got to make the film program what we wanted it to be.

In August of 2019, you earned a spot as a Comedy Writing Intern for the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. What gave you the confidence to apply and how did the opportunity change the trajectory of your career?

That opportunity changed my life, and I will forever be grateful to the Television Academy for giving me the chance of a lifetime. I could afford my move to LA thanks to a 2k financial aid loan for my summer classes, and I stretched that money over three months. Not to flex, but I grossed 19k in 2019 and managed to finance two moves across the country. (That detail probably isn't relevant, but it's empowering to me.)

I shipped my ass to LA and shadowed everyone from audio to directing to office PAs, to set PAs, to the script coordinator. After my internship, I was hired as the executive assistant to the producer of American Housewife, which allowed me to work part-time in the writers' room as the writers' assistant and shadow the script coordinator. It was amazing. My dream came true!

But all dreams come at a cost. I am, at the end of the day, a writer... which means there will be no glory without tears! Even though I liked my job, I didn't love LA. I'm an East Coaster at heart, and I knew I needed to be in New York. After the show wrapped early due to COVID, I knew it was now or never. I moved home to NC, saved my unemployment, and moved to NYC in September 2020, which is where I've been ever since.

My writing mentor said, "Why would you go to NY? You will have more writing opportunities in LA," And he's right. But after four years of living here, I know why I need to be here.

I’m so happy that you followed your intuition in returning to New York because it felt like home. How was the transition of turning away from LA and moving back to the East Coast?

My first year in New York was cold and lonely— as to be expected, so I heard. But in August 2021, I fortunately got a job as a writers' assistant on That Damn Michael Che thanks to a recommendation from a friend I worked with in LA. So I was back in the writers' room! This time, one step closer to my goal. I learned a lot from those writers, like how to write a sketch—a short one—and how to think outside the box.

Once that show wrapped, I spiraled for a year and a half because I naively thought I'd magically get a job as an assistant at SNL. When that didn't happen after a year of trying, I realized perhaps I wasn't meant to work on SNL. Or maybe I didn't try hard enough. I took PA jobs with other scripted shows in NY, which was... enlightening.

I was over it. My love for TV was fading, and there was no one particular reason behind it. There were many compounding reasons I was over it—partly COVID, partly past events I hadn't processed. I resented my career path, and I needed a change.

With COVID-19 derailing so much of the entertainment industry, it led to a lot of people having to make the difficult choice of what they do and don’t want in life. How did you manage to continue seeking opportunities in a time when there weren’t many?

From 2022-2023, I worked as an office PA with fantastic production teams and incredible bosses!! That's how I KNEW I had to stop PAing because it clearly wasn't the people I was annoyed with. I was over the job itself and didn't realize it until I quit in April 2023.

But I was also so sick, like the whole time. I had been suffering from stress-induced UTIs since 2019, usually a steady 2-3 a year. But from January 2023 until the end of the year, I had five UTIs and a kidney infection. I had been operating in fight-or-flight since I was born—oh, and I haven't even gotten into the religious trauma component—and it all came to a head while I was PAing in 2023.

I realized I had to quit when my uncle died, and I took a week off work (shout out to my uncle's untimely passing so I could get a week off work #America!!). I was in NC and didn't want to return to New York. And I was like, "How am I gonna pay to live somewhere I don't wanna be?" So, I quit my job, which is an industry no-no. However, once I told my boss I felt it was unfair to our team to continue working if I no longer cared about the job, she understood. And it was time to once again abandon everything I knew and start over again.

Toxic work culture and capitalism make it difficult for people in the workforce to seek the help they need for physical ailments, mental illness, and bereavement. Despite it all, you still kept going.

Yup. I had those five UTIs, a kidney infection, and a tooth infection that almost went to my brain and killed me. I had my molar pulled, and I could barely walk in December. So, with a missing tooth and a limp, I finished 2023 only to be met with that fun COVID flu everyone got in January, where it felt worse than COVID, but you wouldn't test positive, so everyone said it was the flu. Then bronchitis in March-April. I got two wisdom teeth pulled in May, and I'm getting the bottom two pulled next week. For some people, tooth extractions are simple. But not for this gal. My body does not like getting teeth removed. I'm so used to going to the doctor I'm getting a colonoscopy in September just for fun. (Not a joke.)

"But Grace? What does this have to do with your career?" Everything! My career is completely tied to my health. This is America!! Hello? I was sick for so long because it wasn't enough for me to quit my job. I had to come down emotionally after years of living in fight-or-flight, barely sleeping, eating set meals, and not exercising regularly.

I moved to L.A. because I got my dream job and thought that would bring me peace. When it didn't, I moved to New York and got another dream job, and I thought that meant security. It didn't. I thought a secure job doing what I loved would equate to good health. But it wasn't until I stopped working in T.V. that I got healthy. And when I started prioritizing my health, writing opportunities opened up for me.

That’s exactly right because, not too long after, you got the position you have now as a Freelance Children's Animation Scriptwriter. Were you always open to the idea of working in children’s television?

As of now, I'm at the beginning of my children's animation writing career. I'm part of the Children's Media Association mentorship, so I'm learning the ins and outs of the children's TV industry and having a blast. I'm developing my first children's show... to be clear, it's for a writing sample. It would be crazy if it were for Nickelodeon, though... Don't all Nickelodeon execs speak up at once!!

But it's so exciting! And every now and then, I get paid to write, which is all I've ever dreamed of doing. I've never heard anyone say this at all, but once you do what you feel like you were born to do, life gets better!

In addition to being a writer, you currently run a successful crochet business called SLUTS CROCHET and just launched an amazing commercial on your Instagram. What are you looking forward to next in your career and existence as a multi-hyphenate creative?

While my end goal is to write for adult comedy shows like Righteous Gemstones and Ramy, I'm finally excited about something creative again. I'm learning new writing techniques, challenging my creativity, and feeling empowered to pursue my comedy ventures. Shocker! But COVID and the strikes really knocked me on my ass. I thought I'd never work in this town again. And, don't get me wrong, I have four jobs and counting. But I have time to be creative, and it took years of beating my head against the wall and taking every assistant job I could to show me that maybe what I really wanted all along was to create anything and as much as humanly possible.

For now, no more fight-or-flight. Slow and consistent. I'll achieve everything I set out to because I already have. If it takes more time than I anticipated, that's okay. Most good things do.