Ashley Leisten

Ashley Leisten performs musical comedy at an alarming volume. She does not sit quietly at a keyboard and wink at the crowd. She paces, glares, and plays characters whose intensity borders on outright hostility. She will start a song with a peppy, upbeat melody before morphing into a corporate boss who threatens to hold her breath until her employees agree to her demands.

She operates out of the Chicago alt-comedy ecosystem, building her style in rooms like the Annoyance Theatre. In a club landscape crowded with conversational storytellers, her choice to stage chaotic, one-woman musical revues stands out. Her 2023 hour Live From The Raven Room captures an audience caught between laughing and bracing for impact.

The act relies less on intricate lyrical wordplay and more on sheer force of will. She forces bizarre premises into familiar musical theater structures. She will sing an earnest ballad about a woman who decides to become a doctor just so she can hit someone with her car, or scream along to a backing track about the cultish devotion required to drink Dunkin’ iced coffee in freezing weather. When a bit meets a quiet room, she does not pull back. She just gets louder.

Originally from Texas, her background in ballet and sketch dictates how she holds a stage. She moves with deliberate, exaggerated physicality, treating a small performance space like a Broadway theater that owes her money.