Originally from Columbia, Missouri, Ashleigh (she/they) has called Orlando home since moving here with her family in 1994. She began her theatre education at Valencia College, transferring to the University of Central Florida thereafter. She then went on to earn her Master's Degree in Literary, Cultural, & Textual Studies with concentrations in Victorian and Gothic literature, psychoanalytic theory, and gender studies from UCF in 2015.

 

A member of The Dramatists Guild of America, Ashleigh was the recipient of a $5,000 playwriting grant from New Generation Theatrical for her play Qualia: a post nuclear play, presented at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts in October 2019. Qualia was subsequently given an online reading by The Studio Theatre Tierra Del Sol in May of 2020. (The talkback for the performance can be viewed here.) You can find her work on The New Play Exchange.

 

In addition to performing and playwriting, she is a professional photographer and scenic artist. Her photography has been used by The Orlando Sentinel, The Orlando Weekly, Watermark, Renaissance Theatre Company, Orlando Artists' Guild, The Orlando Fringe Festival, and Central Florida Community Arts Theatre, among others. Her scenic design and painting has been featured in productions staged by Renaissance Theatre Company and Central Florida Community Arts Theatre.

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A multi-instrumentalist, Ashleigh plays 6 and 12-string acoustic guitar, electric guitar, soprano ukulele, and mandolin. Additionally, she maintains a working knowledge of period-respective undergarments ranging from the early 18th to the early 20th century. She also owns her own embroidery pattern business, Titanium Lace Embroidery.

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A few random factoids:

• Ashleigh has 4 types of synesthesia (chromesthesia, grapheme color synesthesia, mirror touch synesthesia, and ordinal linguistic personification) and is an advocate for neurodivergent inclusion, accommodation, and celebration, with special focus on ADHD and the Autism spectrum.

• She is an avid cemetery enthusiast and enjoys walking through graveyards, admiring the gravestones, and saying quiet hellos to the dead.

• The first research paper she ever wrote was on Vlad the Impaler in 8th grade.

• Her favorite book of all time is The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi.