Gale was born and raised in the Santa Cruz Mountains of Northern California. She lived in and about the Bay Area, focusing on theater in school and attending the Actor's Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.

She performed in dozens of theatrical productions before coming to improv. Gale performed and taught ComedySportz in San Jose from 1990 until 1999 when she moved to Los Angeles. She performed in, co-wrote with and directed the sketch comedy /improv group Mumblypeg, and hosted a national tour of Nickelodeon's Game Lab.

Amongst other things, Gale has been in a couple of commercials, been a bartender, a barista, toy store manager, prototype engineer in the recording industry, toured children's theater, been a Klingon in a theme park and performed lots of improv shows at Disney's California Adventure and Universal Studios Hollywood.