Azie Mira Dungey is an American actress, producer, and writer, known for the 2013 web series Ask a Slave. She has also written for the TV series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Girls5eva, and Sweetbitter, and Harlem (2021).
Early life and education
editAzie Mira Dungey[1] is from the Washington, DC / Maryland / Virginia area, dubbed "the DMV" by locals.[2] She spent some of her early years ins Philadelphia with her grandparents, as her mother was attending law school, she and has her grandfather's last name.[3] She also lived in Maryland in her younger years.[4]
She is descended from a John Dungey, a Pamunkey man who lived in Virginia and ran his own shipping business. He married an enslaved African American woman (with a white father, her master), and had to get a petition signed by white residents of the state to allow them both to stay there. The relationships between Native Americans were complicated.[3] Dungey is thus both African American and Pamunkey,[5] also Mattaponi, and a very active member of the Native community. The tribe's enrollment policies that excluded members[6] who married or had children with African Americans was exposed by the Congressional Black Caucus[7] during their recognition process in 2013. Dungey comes from a family that was victim to Pamunkey anti-Black tribal law and as of August 2020[update] they were seeking enrollment.[8]
She graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.[2][9]
She admired Tina Fey from a young age and was an avid watcher of Saturday Night Live.[5]
Career
editDungey took part in a number of theatre productions in Washington, DC,[10] including The Walworth Farce at Studio Theatre.[11]
Dungey performed the role of George Washington's family's enslaved lady's maid,[2] as part of an ongoing historical reenactment of life at the Mount Vernon plantation in Virginia once owned by president Washington.[12] Part of her job was to answer tourists' questions about slavery while staying in character.[13] She worked there part-time for nearly two years from 2010 to 2012.[14]
In 2013, Dungey moved to Los Angeles. She then wrote the script for a comedic web series called Ask a Slave,[15] and performed the lead role, that of Lizzie Mae, a slave.[16][17][1][18][19] The series, which she also produced,[2] includes actual incidents from her experiences on the plantation.[9] Released on YouTube, the series attracted hundreds of thousands of page views soon after its release.[2] After the success of the series, Salon magazine listed her as one of 10 black women Saturday Night Live could hire.[20]
She was invited by Tina Fey to write for the Netflix series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and later wrote for Girls5eva, both produced by Fey and Robert Carlock.[5] She also co-wrote and co-produced the TV drama series Sweetbitter[21] on Starz, based on the bestselling novel of the same title by Stephanie Danler.[citation needed]
From 2019, Dungey wrote and hosted on Season 1 of Say It Loud, an educational series for PBS Digital.[22] Also in 2019, she was executive producer and writer for Lena Waithe's Twenties, [23] a sitcom on BET and Showtime, as well as Tracy Oliver's comedy series Harlem (2021), for which her writing was praised.[24]
Towards the end of the prolonged 2023 writers' strike in the U.S., during which Azie stood on the picket line for nearly four months, she went to Australia. There she connected and worked with some of the Indigenous Australian peoples in the Kimberley region in the north of Western Australia, and did a workshop at Goolarri Media in Broome. She was excited to meet Mark Coles Smith, star of the third series of Mystery Road, and was inspired to tell some of the stories of the Aboriginal peoples of the region, such as the story of Bunuba warrior Jandamarra.[5]
Personal life
editDungey has lived on Standing Rock Reservation on Sioux Country, in North and South Dakota.[5]
References
edit- ^ a b Starr, Terrell Jermaine (September 5, 2013). "'Ask A Slave' Creator Uses Sarcastic Humor To Reveal Utter Ignorance". NewsOne. Retrieved January 29, 2024.
- ^ a b c d e Liss-Schultz, Nina (September 10, 2013). "New comedic web series calls out modern day racial ignorance". Mother Jones. Retrieved January 29, 2024.
- ^ a b Dungey, Azie (May 31, 2020). "Black and Indigenous with Azie Dungey". Medicine for the Resistance (Interview). Interviewed by Krawec, Patty. Retrieved January 30, 2024.
- ^ Andrews-Dyer, Helena (March 12, 2015). "Actress who once played a slave at Mount Vernon makes it to Hollywood". Washington Post. Retrieved January 30, 2024.
- ^ a b c d e Kordic, Mya (January 28, 2024). "Screenwriter Azie Dungey hit the wall during the Hollywood writers' strike and found solace in outback WA". ABC News. Retrieved January 29, 2024.
- ^ Sunray, Cedric. "Pamunkey Pride and Prejudice: How the Feds Mandated Racism". Indian Country Today. Retrieved June 15, 2021.
- ^ Washington, Associated Press in (November 28, 2014). "Congressional Black Caucus protests against Virginia Indian tribe recognition". the Guardian. Retrieved June 15, 2021.
- ^ Dungey, Azie (August 18, 2020). "twitter thread: I've talked a bit about my family..." Archived from the original on August 19, 2020.
- ^ a b Thenor-Louis], Isabelle (March 14, 2014). "Satirical "Ask a Slave" tackles modern knowledge of slavery". The Brown Daily Herald. Retrieved January 29, 2024.
- ^ Wells, Veronica (September 3, 2013). ""Ask A Slave": Actress Creates Series Based On Ignorant Questions She Fielded". MadameNoire. Archived from the original on July 27, 2021. Retrieved January 29, 2024.
- ^ " Play DC: The Walworth Farce @ Studio Theatre". Brightest Young Things, April 13, 2011
- ^ "Ask A 'Living History' Actor: Ask A Slave's Azie Mira Dungey On Her New Web Series" Archived 2013-09-11 at the Wayback Machine. DCist, by Matt Cohen on Sep 9, 201
- ^ "‘Ask A Slave’ Web Series Creator Azie Mira Dungey Uses Satire To Educate the Ignorant About Slavery". Good Black News.
- ^ "Ask A 'Living History' Actor: Ask A Slave's Azie Mira Dungey On Her New Web Series". DCist. Archived from the original on September 11, 2013. Retrieved April 13, 2017.
- ^ "WATCH: Have You Seen "Ask a Slave"?". Philadelphia.
- ^ "A-State Professor Receives Start-Up Grant 04/10/2014". A State, Arkansas State University.
- ^ "YouTube Comedy 'Ask a Slave' Tackles the Thanksgiving Question: 'What About the Indians?'". Indian Country Today, November 25, 2013.
- ^ "Ask A Slave And Get A Real Answer". Here & Now.
- ^ Neetzan Zimmerman. "'Ask A Slave' Is the Best Web Series Since 'Drunk History'" Archived September 7, 2013, at the Wayback Machine. Gawker.
- ^ Gupta, Prachi. "10 talented black women "SNL" could hire". Salon. Retrieved April 13, 2017.
- ^ Azie Dungey at IMDb
- ^ Say It Loud (TV Series 2019–) at IMDb
- ^ Twenties at IMDb
- ^ Wardlow, Ciara (December 3, 2021). "Amazon's Harlem Delivers a Fun, Flirty Romp of New York City Glamour, Finally in Color". rogerebert.com. Retrieved January 30, 2024.
Further reading
edit- Tyson, A. M., & Dungey, A. M. (2014). Ask a Slave and Interpreting Race on Public History’s Front Line: Interview with Azie Mira Dungey. The Public Historian, 36(1), 36–60.