Cayla Clark’s quest to make fun of everyone in Asheville

The typical profile of a Hollywood starlet goes like this: She meets a journalist at a restaurant that sells a $32 salad. The starlet nibbles on said salad, and she gives coyly evasive answers about her love life. If the journalist asks about any potentially messy subject — her drinking, perhaps, or an ex — her publicist sharply interjects: That’s off limits. Somewhere in this profile, especially if it is written by a man, is a description of the starlet’s body.

But this is Asheville, not Hollywood, and so Blind Date Live comedian Cayla Clark meets with a journalist at Dobra Tea West and orders the cheese plate. She won’t allow the journalist to pay, as it’s the most expensive thing on the menu; she brings home what she doesn’t finish in a doggie bag.

Clark is disarming and forthcoming about dating, careers, her alcohol use disorder, rehab and mental health. She’s sharp, witty and talented at acting. And — here’s that description of the starlet’s body — she has extraordinarily expressive eyes that she puts to use in sketches on Instagram Reels where she punches up, down and sideways at Asheville life.

Often in these Reels, Clark plays a character named Amanda Rosequartz Didgeridoo Johnson, who is blissfully unaware of her own obnoxiousness. Other caricatures Clark portrays share this trait — from the Asheville slam poet to the local healing coach. Then there’s the veterinarian who tells her clients, “I’m not a vet in the traditional sense — I’m a very empathetic toucher.” Or the mom of a toddler who claims that she’s “cured his ADHD with local honey and affirming spankings.” Or the teacher whose students are pre-K — that is, preketamine. Or the Asheville cop whose field sobriety test involves the warrior 2 pose.

Clark’s Instagram Reels typically garner hundreds of comments and thousands of views (with at least two videos hitting over a million views). She’s a veritable homegrown celebrity. “We can’t go anywhere now without somebody talking to her,” says her boyfriend, cameraman and occasional co-star, Ryan Gordon.

“She has her ear to the ground and her finger on the pulse when it comes to people and subcultures, especially in Asheville,” adds Cellarest Beer Project co-founder Harrison Fahrer, who co-starred with Clark (and her creepy babydoll Tristan) in her “Brewery Mom” video. “She’s actively helping us take ourselves less seriously.”

‘We need to film this right now’

Clark didn’t set out to skewer Asheville in her comedy.

In fact, she moved from Oregon in January 2021 because she wanted to be within driving distance of a man she’d fallen for who lived in Charleston, S.C. That relationship didn’t last, which Clark says was due, in part, to her excessive drinking. But she stayed in Asheville.

By 2022, Clark became active in recovery from alcohol use disorder. The process reawakened old passions, including acting and playing matchmaker. About a year ago, she launched Blind Date Live with Donnie Rex Bishop, a local videographer, and the pair began producing with George Awad and Paul Dixon of Double Dip Productions. The premise is simple: Clark prescreens singles and sets six of them up on a blind date — onstage, in front of a live studio audience.

To promote the show, Clark created the Instagram account @blinddateliveavl. But she also began to use the page “as a platform to do sketch comedy that was more Asheville-specific,” she explains. “And then when that started gaining traction, I was like, ‘OK, this is my niche now’ — and I kind of ran with that.”

It’s a niche she’s gone all in on: Since posting “POV: You’re on a Date with Someone ‘From Asheville’” in December, she has created over 60 Reels.

Clark says she generates most of the ideas for sketches, although some viewers have pitched concepts that she later develops. A majority of her videos hinge on one main joke that she riffs off of, unscripted. Typically, she’ll film, edit and post on the same day.

“I’ll just think of something and I’ll be like, ‘OK, we need to film this right now,’” she explains.

Her urgency, at times, can overwhelm Gordon, who often films the skit or plays the straight man. Clark notes that he’s told her, “‘You act like we’re both gonna die if we don’t film it, like, immediately.’ Which is true.”

With Clark’s popularity comes some scrutiny. Her “Brewery Mom” sketch — in which she played a mother whose toddler (Tristan the babydoll) terrorizes Cellarest while her character enjoys IPAs — ruffled some feathers. “It’s like a day care, but it’s free, and there’s beer!” Clark declares in a husky, self-satisfied drawl. While many commenters on Instagram called the video hilarious — and some bar and restaurant employees chimed in to say her depiction of a distracted, drinking parent was accurate —  others accused the skit of mom-shaming.

Clark takes the criticism in stride, noting most viewers understand the videos are “clearly satire.” And she herself has some woo-woo qualities that are skewered in her Reels: She owns a rose quartz, among other crystals, and six or seven tarot decks.

And of course, she’s originally from California. “The only real hate [I get from commenters] is people saying, ‘Go back to where you came from,’” she says.

Pint-sized badass

Clark was born in Goleta, Calif., adjacent to Santa Barbara. At age 3, she told her parents she wanted to be an actor, and a year later, they got her an agent. Clark booked a Little Caesars commercial and was “hooked,” she says. Throughout her childhood in the early 1990s, Clark appeared in nationwide commercials for Corn Pops, McDonald’s, Corn Flakes and Honda.

“That was the beginning of my addiction to that kind of attention,” Clark says.

She recalls being 7 years old “when one of the big kids on the playground came up to me and was like, ‘You’re cool, I saw you on a McDonald’s commercial!’” She contorts her face to look like a pint-sized badass, agreeing with his assessment. “And I was like, ‘Yeah! I’m a cool kid!’” Then she laughs.

During high school, Clark performed improv, and one of her last entertainment industry projects was a pilot for a TV show called “Improv High.” She doesn’t remember what network it had been geared toward but calls it “silly” — “a cross between ‘Wild ‘N Out’ and ‘Whose Line Is It Anyway?’” She chuckles. “There’s a clear reason it didn’t get picked up.”

Around that same time, Clark took a playwriting class. She fell in love and went on to study the form at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her late teen and college years were also when she began drinking heavily. “When my drinking really picked up, that’s kind of when everything else fell by the wayside,” she says.

A couple of years after graduating college, Clark moved to Delray Beach, Fla.,  for rehab — “the treatment capital of the country,” she jokes. Clark describes the city as being filled with young people attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings amid the backdrop of a “dark underbelly” — that is, overdoses and deaths from substance use disorders.

“I did healing and growing in that time period, but it also was traumatic in some ways,” Clark says. “I had so many friends pass away from opioid overdoses. I had never been exposed to that before.”

After rehab, Clark made her way to Bend, Ore., where she worked as a newspaper reporter for a couple of years. Although she loved parts of being a journalist, she says she eventually left the field because of the structure.

“I don’t like rules,” she says. “I like making mine up.”

She also admits she was in a “bad mental space,” which eventually led to her meeting a man and moving across the country to be closer to him. “I was impulsive — probably still am, but much less so,” she says.

When she first arrived to Asheville, Clark knew no one. During that time, she also struggled with alcohol.  “I just could not stay sober,” she says.

In 2022, she became active in recovery again, and one year ago, she began dating Gordon. “Now I’m in, for the first time ever, a healthy, functional relationship,” she says. “For a while, I thought I’m just undateable.” She pauses. “Turns out, I might be,” she laughs. “Just kidding.”

Make me a match

In addition to her Instagram success, Clark is still nurturing Blind Date Live. The next show is Saturday, Aug. 24, 7 p.m., at The Grey Eagle, 185 Clingman Ave.

The matchmaking aspect of producing the show, Clark says, is an enormous amount of work. She sorts through Asheville’s singles to find three potentially compatible matches. “There’s definitely a yenta in me,” she says, crediting her nana for an interest in romance and rom-coms.

Clark is proud that many Blind Date Live couples have gone on several dates (beyond the first one that happens onstage), and one couple who matched in June 2023 are still together.

And because she loves it, Clark also does a little offstage matchmaking on the side — “just for free, like as a service to the community,” she says.

This summer also marks another milestone the comedian and social media star is proud to share: Clark will collect her two-year chip for alcohol recovery on Wednesday, Aug. 14.

Editor’s note: Cayla Clark previously worked at Xpress and remains a contributor to the paper’s monthly comedy feature “Best Medicine.”