Artistic Statement
There was never a moment I wasn't moving forward.
Since developing a love for Shakespeare in 7th grade at a summer camp offered by Orlando Shakes (then The Orlando Shakespeare Festival), I've attempted to fill every part of my life with theatre — performance, playwriting, hair and makeup, prop making, set painting and construction, and music composition. I was trained in Shakespearean performance and Linklater technique during my three consecutive years at Orlando Shakes' The Young Company. These three years instilled within me a drive to create. And not just create. Explore.
At Valencia College, I gained valuable voice, dialect, and movement education and discovered the importance of truth and honesty in performance. When I moved on to the University of Central Florida, I chose literature instead of theatre, so, in order to get my performance fix, I returned to Valencia to perform in shows there.
During my time in grad school from 2012 to 2015, I delved into playwriting in my free time to explore the concepts I was learning in my English studies of Freud, Judith Butler, Sacher-Masoch, and Slavoj Žižek. I sought to address problems in relationships, both friendly and romantic, like isolation, jealousy, love, lust, compassion, and the effects these things have on personal identity. I was also asked to do dramaturgy work on a production of Hamlet in 2012 and, most recently in 2017, George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan, which fed my love of research. Then, in February of 2018, I was honored to have two of my one-act plays, Ghost & Funeral Party, produced by Jeremy Seghers of Orlando, FL. The experienced changed my life.
Since March 2019, my weekly radio show, Orlando Theatre Hour (on WPRK 91.5 FM) has helped foster visibility and interest in theatre events in and around the Central Florida area. Its mission is to serve the greater theatre community at large by encouraging cross-support between Central Florida theatre companies, both professional and community, and to educate the general public about why theatre arts are an essential part of Orlando's cultural identity.
To date, I've been an actor, a playwright, a dramaturge, a director, a prop fabricator, a scenic painter, a composer, and a stage manager. If it is asked of me, I stand at attention eagerly. My hunger is to work with texts that examine what it is to be human and to portray characters that are endowed with strength, sight, and sincerity, whether inherent or learned. Shakespeare or Ibsen. Chekhov or Baker. There is nothing in the world I love so much as theatre.
Since developing a love for Shakespeare in 7th grade at a summer camp offered by Orlando Shakes (then The Orlando Shakespeare Festival), I've attempted to fill every part of my life with theatre — performance, playwriting, hair and makeup, prop making, set painting and construction, and music composition. I was trained in Shakespearean performance and Linklater technique during my three consecutive years at Orlando Shakes' The Young Company. These three years instilled within me a drive to create. And not just create. Explore.
At Valencia College, I gained valuable voice, dialect, and movement education and discovered the importance of truth and honesty in performance. When I moved on to the University of Central Florida, I chose literature instead of theatre, so, in order to get my performance fix, I returned to Valencia to perform in shows there.
During my time in grad school from 2012 to 2015, I delved into playwriting in my free time to explore the concepts I was learning in my English studies of Freud, Judith Butler, Sacher-Masoch, and Slavoj Žižek. I sought to address problems in relationships, both friendly and romantic, like isolation, jealousy, love, lust, compassion, and the effects these things have on personal identity. I was also asked to do dramaturgy work on a production of Hamlet in 2012 and, most recently in 2017, George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan, which fed my love of research. Then, in February of 2018, I was honored to have two of my one-act plays, Ghost & Funeral Party, produced by Jeremy Seghers of Orlando, FL. The experienced changed my life.
Since March 2019, my weekly radio show, Orlando Theatre Hour (on WPRK 91.5 FM) has helped foster visibility and interest in theatre events in and around the Central Florida area. Its mission is to serve the greater theatre community at large by encouraging cross-support between Central Florida theatre companies, both professional and community, and to educate the general public about why theatre arts are an essential part of Orlando's cultural identity.
To date, I've been an actor, a playwright, a dramaturge, a director, a prop fabricator, a scenic painter, a composer, and a stage manager. If it is asked of me, I stand at attention eagerly. My hunger is to work with texts that examine what it is to be human and to portray characters that are endowed with strength, sight, and sincerity, whether inherent or learned. Shakespeare or Ibsen. Chekhov or Baker. There is nothing in the world I love so much as theatre.
←
Ashleigh Ann Gardner
Artistic Statement
There was never a moment I wasn't moving forward.
Since developing a love for Shakespeare in 7th grade at a summer camp offered by Orlando Shakes (then The Orlando Shakespeare Festival), I've attempted to fill every part of my life with theatre — performance, playwriting, hair and makeup, prop making, set painting and construction, and music composition. I was trained in Shakespearean performance and Linklater technique during my three consecutive years at Orlando Shakes' The Young Company. These three years instilled within me a drive to create. And not just create. Explore.
At Valencia College, I gained valuable voice, dialect, and movement education and discovered the importance of truth and honesty in performance. When I moved on to the University of Central Florida, I chose literature instead of theatre, so, in order to get my performance fix, I returned to Valencia to perform in shows there.
During my time in grad school from 2012 to 2015, I delved into playwriting in my free time to explore the concepts I was learning in my English studies of Freud, Judith Butler, Sacher-Masoch, and Slavoj Žižek. I sought to address problems in relationships, both friendly and romantic, like isolation, jealousy, love, lust, compassion, and the effects these things have on personal identity. I was also asked to do dramaturgy work on a production of Hamlet in 2012 and, most recently in 2017, George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan, which fed my love of research. Then, in February of 2018, I was honored to have two of my one-act plays, Ghost & Funeral Party, produced by Jeremy Seghers of Orlando, FL. The experienced changed my life.
Since March 2019, my weekly radio show, Orlando Theatre Hour (on WPRK 91.5 FM) has helped foster visibility and interest in theatre events in and around the Central Florida area. Its mission is to serve the greater theatre community at large by encouraging cross-support between Central Florida theatre companies, both professional and community, and to educate the general public about why theatre arts are an essential part of Orlando's cultural identity.
To date, I've been an actor, a playwright, a dramaturge, a director, a prop fabricator, a scenic painter, a composer, and a stage manager. If it is asked of me, I stand at attention eagerly. My hunger is to work with texts that examine what it is to be human and to portray characters that are endowed with strength, sight, and sincerity, whether inherent or learned. Shakespeare or Ibsen. Chekhov or Baker. There is nothing in the world I love so much as theatre.
Since developing a love for Shakespeare in 7th grade at a summer camp offered by Orlando Shakes (then The Orlando Shakespeare Festival), I've attempted to fill every part of my life with theatre — performance, playwriting, hair and makeup, prop making, set painting and construction, and music composition. I was trained in Shakespearean performance and Linklater technique during my three consecutive years at Orlando Shakes' The Young Company. These three years instilled within me a drive to create. And not just create. Explore.
At Valencia College, I gained valuable voice, dialect, and movement education and discovered the importance of truth and honesty in performance. When I moved on to the University of Central Florida, I chose literature instead of theatre, so, in order to get my performance fix, I returned to Valencia to perform in shows there.
During my time in grad school from 2012 to 2015, I delved into playwriting in my free time to explore the concepts I was learning in my English studies of Freud, Judith Butler, Sacher-Masoch, and Slavoj Žižek. I sought to address problems in relationships, both friendly and romantic, like isolation, jealousy, love, lust, compassion, and the effects these things have on personal identity. I was also asked to do dramaturgy work on a production of Hamlet in 2012 and, most recently in 2017, George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan, which fed my love of research. Then, in February of 2018, I was honored to have two of my one-act plays, Ghost & Funeral Party, produced by Jeremy Seghers of Orlando, FL. The experienced changed my life.
Since March 2019, my weekly radio show, Orlando Theatre Hour (on WPRK 91.5 FM) has helped foster visibility and interest in theatre events in and around the Central Florida area. Its mission is to serve the greater theatre community at large by encouraging cross-support between Central Florida theatre companies, both professional and community, and to educate the general public about why theatre arts are an essential part of Orlando's cultural identity.
To date, I've been an actor, a playwright, a dramaturge, a director, a prop fabricator, a scenic painter, a composer, and a stage manager. If it is asked of me, I stand at attention eagerly. My hunger is to work with texts that examine what it is to be human and to portray characters that are endowed with strength, sight, and sincerity, whether inherent or learned. Shakespeare or Ibsen. Chekhov or Baker. There is nothing in the world I love so much as theatre.