“Bi The Way” Interview With Comedian and Creator Sayrie

Sayrie: My full name Vanise Sayrie, I go by my last name as my stage name to pay homage to my Dad.  That’s my way to just basically call attention to that name and to remember, it’s not about me when I perform, it’s like a family thing, so I use my family’s name.

Amelia: I hear you’ve got a new YouTube podcast series coming out. What is this project about? Can you describe a little bit what we’re gearing up for?

Sayrie: The synopsis is that a preacher’s kid named ADA becomes bi-curious after a steamy game of truth or dare goes wrong. Once she kisses a girl, and likes it, she and her roommate embark down a comedic road of sexual awareness, identity, spirituality, and friendship.  Essentially it’s about a bisexual girl that kissed the girl and likes it and now she’s going down this road of discovery,

Amelia: What was your inspiration for this project?

Sayrie: The reason why I liked this project so much is because I feel like a lot of people are closeted or don’t know how they feel.  Sexuality is a spectrum between gay and straight, everybody falls somewhere in the middle, right?  A lot of people won’t want to admit that, but it’s true. So, me talking about bi-curiousness or whatever, it’s the elephant in the room. A lot of people may be curious and may not even know they are, or it’s just, just everybody just feel free and open.  I’m pushing for everybody just to be themselves, live in their truth, and be open.  Even if bisexuality is not your truth, just the idea of just living in your truth, in a comedic way.

Amelia: What do you want to say about the message of your series? What is it that you want viewers to gain from it?

Sayrie: Overall, to free yourself in whatever aspect that could be in.  Trust that the truth about yourself, either can help somebody else, if you’re honest about it or expressive about it, or your truth can inspire someone else.  It is important to be able to check in and with yourself and ask yourself. “Am I being genuine today? Am I being who I want to be right now?”  People don’t understand that they have beautiful, unique traits just about themselves that they can live in and that their truth can inspire a whole other group of people.

Amelia: That’s a very great message. Who are the characters? Is it one character that we are learning about or their relationships with other people or is it an inner inner monologue type of series?

Sayrie: The main character is Ada and her roommate is Eve, they are kind of like the two main people.  They have this nosy neighbor named Nikki, and they have the father who is a preacher.  His name is Reverend Daddy.  Everything is kind of coming through the eyes of ADA who is starting off as bi-curious.  She is walking through this world and anybody knows that when you switch over to the LGBT world, there’s a whole lot going on.  The series has kind of pokes fun at different things.  For example, at some point she goes to bisexual anonymous trying to work out their sexual kinks, and she goes to church, and at another point she goes into online dating.  It’s all different because it’s now going through a bisexual or lesbian point of view, like, who pays on the date when it’s with two women?  We don’t know because when it’s two women or two men, there’s no gender roles. So there’s no really set guidelines. I think when it comes to being gay or LGBT, only the people in that world knows those different little nuances.

Amelia: What is your background with comedy and how are you working it into this series?

It’s been a long journey since I was like 18. I was making my own shows for a public broadcasting channel where I learned how to edit, direct, how to produce, all that stuff.  Now, fast forward some years later, I picked up writing from different improv schools, I was doing editing for VH1, I was acting and at some point I was doing improv and stand-up. So, this project is basically me pulling out all the tools from my toolkit. This is really me coming out. This is me having an open expression. So, for this project, I had to write it, direct, act it, produce it, and edit it.  It was a labor of love.  Everybody came through and was like, okay, what do you need?  We just shot it and got it done.

The first couple of episodes really establish the characters. This is a little kind of like a little bit introductory, but, by the third episode it just gets crazy.  We shot the whole series in five days over the span of three months.

Amelia: The release date is Tuesday, November 16th.  Will all of these episodes be released at the same time, is this something we can binge watch?

Sayrie: I believe we let them come and do a slow torture releasing the one of the seven episodes weekly, that brings us right up until Christmas. The last episode will air on the 28th, right before New Years.

Amelia: What kind of art audience are you targeting or like who did you make this for?

Sayrie: Of course it’s gonna be geared towards the LGBT community because they probably share the most similarities to it. I would start off saying that its geared toward, you know, the LGBT community, the queer bisexual female or male or whatever world.  I think the project was made for myself. It was, it was cleansing too, it was refreshing to do.  I realized as an artist that things were kind of making me feel restricted.  My standup was feeling restricted because I wasn’t fully being honest and living in my full truth.  I wanted to be free to talk about everything from sex to religion or whatever other things that be out there.

Amelia: Do you have anything else that you would like to say about the series or a couple of words of wisdom, anything like that?

Sayrie: Yeah. I would say just, you know, just watch it for what it is. It’s a comedy, it’s supposed to make you laugh.  Don’t overthink it.  I just want everybody to just trust that truth and be brave enough to be themselves.  When you open yourself up to more criticism, you become more vulnerable because that’s when somebody can say they don’t like the way you wear your hair or whatever. It’s like, well, my hair is my hair. If I’m wearing a wig and take the wig off, the blame is on the wig.  We hide ourselves the most because we can get criticized and that’s connected to us.  The people that are the harshest on others are the ones that sometimes are the harshest on themselves.  Unlike people who don’t care about where the wind blows, those are some of the best people to be around because they don’t see the world so jacked up.  Everybody just love everybody.  Stop being judgmental and just be nice. That’s it.