Julia Gay (she/they) is an actor, dancer, playwright, stand-up comedian and teaching artist. She completed her BA at Macalester College, studying American studies, urban studies, and theatre. Julia was the recipient of the Playwrights' Center's (PWC) 2017-18 Many Voices Mentorship and is currently a PWC Affiliated Writer. She was a dancer with the professional dance company, Ananya Dance Theatre (ADT), training, performing, and touring nationally and internationally in the contemporary Indian dance form of Yorchha from 2016-2020. As an actor, Julia has worked with the CornerHouse, Guthrie Theater, Mixed Blood Theater, Pangea World Theater, Penumbra Theatre, Pillsbury House + Theatre, the Playwrights' Center, The Southern Theater, Theater Mu and Transatlantic Love Affair, among others. Her one-woman show, Motherlanded, exploring her personal narrative as a Chinese adoptee, premiered in 2016 at Pangea World Theater and was remounted in October 2019 at Dreamland Arts.

Julia tried out stand-up comedy in 2017 and has been performing stand up ever since. She has performed at variety shows and open mics including The Funny 2017, Mother Goose's Bedtime Stories, Vector 9, Stand-Up for RAINN, Uproar Comedy Open Mic (headliner), PSSY CTRL, Who Is She, the UNCS Comedy Showcase, the Shui Family Meal, the Pay Gap Comedy Couch Tour and the LIVE Pay Gap Comedy & Music Festival.

As a teaching artist, Julia has worked with SteppingStone Theatre and has led Arts Literacy youth workshops in the St. Paul Public Schools alongside long-time director and educator, Jan Mandell. Through the Irreducible Grace Foundation she collaborated with vulnerable youth who have experienced foster care, homelessness, and incarceration. Collectively they created and produced "Fostering Voice," a performance based on their lived experiences that was showcased in 2015 at Park Square Theatre. She collaborated with Hmong American artist, May Yee-Lang, on a poetry mural workshop for young adoptees at the 2016 Families with Children from Asia Midwest Conference and more recently led a movement and healing workshop for PAVE-MN's "By Us, For Us: Asian American Healing Series."