Ashley Griffin Discusses her Historic Feat in Hamlet, the "Stage Directions" Podcast, & Trusting Yourself!
I think there is no better group of artists than the ones who contribute to the OnStage Blog family, and Ashley Griffin truly is a huge contributor. Ashley is a working Actor, Director, Writer and Podcaster as well as the Host of the Stage Directions Podcast for OnStage Blog (if you haven't listened to an episode, definitely make sure you do so, it is absolutely wonderful). Ashley's career has been just great and one that can inspire many. Some of her credits (Film, TV, and Theatre) include The Greatest Showman (Lily)(20th Century Fox), Homeland (Sophie Winter)(Showtime), The Deuce (Charlie), Alias (Mia)(ABC), American Dreams (Alice)(NBC), Wicked "For Good" Special Event Concert (Elphaba), Pippin Broadway Revival Cast Recording Vocalist (Soprano), Chicago (Velma), Romeo and Juliet (Juliet), Angels in America (Harper), and Changed For Good (Music by: S. Schwartz) at The Playwrights Horizons (Ellie) among many others.
What I find most amazing about Ashley is that she is the first person in history to be nominated for a major award for both playing and directing Hamlet. That is honestly just so badass. There is no other way to describe that feat.
As a writer, Ashley is most well known as the creator of "Trial" (directed by Lori Petty) and the pop culture phenomenon "Forever Deadward" (New World Stages) which has been praised by MTV, E!, EW, and others. Her theater work has been developed at Broadway's Manhattan Theater Club, Playwrights Horizons, La MaMa, and the American Theater of Actors, and she has written for film and TV. Ashley has accomplished so much, and what I think is amazing about it is I don't feel she has even scratched the surface of how far she will go in her career. It is beyond an honor to feature Ashley Griffin!
How old were you when you knew you wanted to be a performer?
I always knew that this is what I wanted to do. When I was a kid, I was always putting on shows in the living room. The biggest rule I had as a child was that I was not allowed to perform in the living room before 7am. Whenever I’d have friends or babysitters over, I’d wrangle them into acting out stories with me. My mom always says the moment she knew I was going to be a performer was when I was really little, and I would stand with my index finger out and very intently say the same speech over and over again with the same gestures and inflections. It was mostly in baby talk, so my mom didn’t understand what I was saying, but I would do it the same way every time.
Finally, she asked me what I was doing. I said, "The Blue Fairy monologue from Pinocchio.”
How I knew or where I had ever heard the word “monologue” before remains a mystery to this day. My mom was confused, so I said, “Here! I’ll show you!” I put on Pinocchio and jumped to the part where the Blue Fairy first appears and says “Now Pinocchio, you prove yourself brave, truthful…” My index finger was my wand, and I was saying the speech with the exact same inflections and gestures (albeit in baby talk) as the Blue Fairy.
But, I always combined performing with other ways of telling stories. When acting out things with my friends, I would stop and direct them, or give them different lines to say. I wrote my first musical when I was eight and performed it with some friends (who I was teaching acting to at lunch. No joke) for my 3rdgrade class. Because I started acting when I was two (I grew up in L.A. and dragged my mom to auditions and rehearsals), I used to think I would never be able to be a professional writer because I started to write plays 5-6 years later than I started acting. I thought I came to it “too late in life.” I was always happiest performing and storytelling, and I’m so grateful I have a mom who supported me but was never a “stage mom.” I remember once when I was eight we got out of school early. My mom told me I had an audition, but before she got the call, she’d been planning on surprising me with a trip to Disneyland. I chose to go to the audition over going to Disneyland.
Are there any teachers or mentors in your life who truly helped you become the wonderful artist you are today?
Gabriel Barre. Gabe is a world-renowned director and performer, and I had actually been a huge fan of his starting when I was a wee young thing and discovered his liner notes to Andrew Lippa’s The Wild Party. There was something about what he said that made me desperate to work with him someday. Well very long story short, I got that chance when, just after graduating from NYU Tisch, he became attached to a project of mine as the director. I was over the moon! We hit it off immediately, and I always say “I went to the Gabriel Barre grad school of writing and directing.” He’s taught me more about those things than anyone else, and he’s done so by being an incredible mentor who has treated me as an equal from the day we first met. A common thread among the teachers that have had the greatest impact on me (and I would wager this is true for most people) is they have always treated me as a professional and an equal from the word go even if I was much younger and less experienced, and it made me rise to their level. Gabe has since become a frequent collaborator, mentor, and a very dear friend. He pushed me to become the artist I am, helped me find my voice, and I always say when I’m directing a project, anything good about what I’ve done must be attributed to him, and any fault is mine.
Ray Virta. I met Ray at NYU Tisch, and he is the best acting teacher I’ve ever had. He is still a dear friend and mentor and I’m so grateful to have him in my life. I’ve never seen Ray work with two students the same way. He treats you as an individual and deeply cares about you as both an artist and a person. Because of that, he helps you reach new heights as a performer. If you ever have the opportunity to study with him, take it! Ray no longer teaches at NYU, but he is a principal faculty member at AMDA NY, and he’s usually performing in a Broadway show at the same time. Ray was in the developmental reading of my play TRIAL at MTC, and I can’t tell you how special that was for me.
Tania Travers. Tania has been my voice teacher for years. She’s probably most well known as Idina Menzel’s voice teacher. She helped me find my voice, and I am beyond grateful to study with her. Tania believes in helping you discover your natural voice, not putting something on your voice because you think you’re supposed to sound a certain way, and she helps sustain it in a strong, healthy way. She’s also just a very wise person, and some of the things I most value from working with her are her wonderful pieces of advice about everything from confidence to how to handle yourself in the rehearsal room or studio. Go take lessons from her! She’s brilliant. I was a bit of an ugly duckling with my voice. Growing up, I was often compared to (and compared myself to) singers who are very different from how I’m built vocally, and by studying with Tania I was able to own my voice while still having flexibility to sing anything I might want or be called upon to perform.
Richard Schraier. I was fortunate enough to go to the wonderful performing arts high school The Hamilton Academy of Music where Mr. Schraier (None of his former students can call him anything else) headed the Musical Theater, Vocal, and Piano departments. Talk about leading by example and treating students like professionals! I got the best theater education from Mr. Schraier and Hamilton that I’ve ever had anywhere. Mr. Schraier teaches his students to value the history of any piece their working on, to always give 110% every day in the rehearsal room (not just onstage), and to take pride in everything we do. To this day, I always think about what Mr. Schraier would say in any rehearsal room I find myself in. And he taught more than musical theater. I know piano, music theory, and Jazz at the level I do because of him. Even though I struggled with them and wasn’t as good as some of my fellow students, I can now more than hold my own.
It is a breath of fresh air to see the light at the end of this tunnel which has left all artists wondering when things will get back to normal. What are some things you have done to truly keep your spirits up during these times?
Well, it’s hard because we’ve been struggling with two things – how to stay active and fulfilled in our art, but also just how to survive financially and emotionally. I’m fortunate that I’m a writer as well as a performer. Writing is something you can do literally anywhere, and you don’t need anyone else to be able to do it. There are good and challenging things about the solitary nature of writing, but that’s one of the good things. I’ve tried to look at this time as an opportunity to do my “artistic housekeeping” – meaning writing shows I’ve been wanting to write, working on projects I need to edit or develop further, etc. So, I’ve written a lot of projects, I’ve been doing development on others (yay Zoom!), and I’ve also been fortunate to be cast in some wonderful virtual projects including fulfilling a longtime dream in a couple of months when I get to play Carol in “Oleanna” opposite the great Jordan Lage (SPEED THE PLOW, GLENGARRY…) directed by Jim Frangione for the Great Barrington Public Theater. Hopefully, a live production will follow when thing fully reopen. I’ve been having regular meetings with my wonderful producers about projects that were in the works during shutdown, and I'm basically just trying to get all my ducks in a row, so I can hit the ground running when things reopen.
I love your Stage Directions podcast. What inspired you to create it?
Thank you! I’m honored that OnStage Blog asked me to do it! Stage Directions came out of a blog I’d had for a while. Ever since college, I’ve been referred to as “The Theatrical Hermione Granger,” and the blog came out of me wanting to talk about issues and ideas a lot of people were asking me about, but I didn’t have a forum for answering en mass. I have this Granger-esque knowledge about a lot of random theatrical, historical, and literary elements that no one else seemed to be addressing. That blog turned into the podcast where I still excavate those issues but can now combine it with interviews and discussions with other artists. There are a lot of issues and ideas that don’t really get talked about in our industry, and I wanted to change that.
Are there any roles, shows, or moments in your career that stick out and will always be near and dear to your heart?
Of course! In a way, it’s funny to think about because the moments that stick out the most aren’t always the ones others would think of, or they are very divergent from each other. Getting to perform at The Gershwin Theater was a dream come true in a way I don’t know if I’ll ever really be able to describe, but I also remember getting cast in my first show at Hamilton High (a school I’d been dreaming of attending for years) and how overwhelmed I was getting to step on that stage for the first time. Playing Hamlet and everything that came from that show was absolutely incredible, and I hope I get to bring it back soon, and OMG! Being in a rehearsal room with the great Lori Petty for the premiere of my show TRIAL, seeing that show that means so much to me come to fruition, and getting to be directed by Lori. There are a lot of wonderful moments, but those are some big standouts.
What advice would you give any young aspiring artists who want a career in the performing arts?
1.) Make sure you’re going into the arts for the right reason. If you want to move and affect people through storytelling, you can’t go far wrong, but if you’re in it for any other reason…DON’T.
2.) This industry is largely built around the premise that you have to please other people or be what they want you to be to get a job. While you have to have a certain level of competence, of course, the thing few will tell you is what will actually give you the happiest, healthiest, and, in the long run, most successful career is finding your unique voice and carrying that as a banner into anything and everything you do. Don’t ever forget that you have a gift that is just as valuable as anyone else’s, and always go into any situation with the goal of sharing it.
3.) Stephen Schwartz gave me some wonderful advice that has held me in good stead: “Trust yourself, please yourself, but be hard on yourself.”
4.) Be nice to everyone, always prove yourself trustworthy, do work that you’re proud of, and as Chris DeCarlo (the co-artistic director of The Santa Monica Playhouse – the wonderful rep theater where I grew up) always told us: “Fake it till you make it.”
5.) I’d love to leave you with the brilliant words of Neil Gaiman (This is part of a brilliant commencement speech he gave:)
“And when things get tough, this is what you should do.
Make good art.
I’m serious. Husband runs off with a politician? Make good art. Leg crushed and then eaten by mutated boa constrictor? Make good art. IRS on your trail? Make good art. Cat exploded? Make good art. Somebody on the Internet thinks what you do is stupid or evil or it’s all been done before? Make good art. Probably things will work out somehow, and eventually time will take the sting away, but that doesn’t matter. Do what only you do best. Make good art.
Make it on the good days too.”
To learn more about Ashley Griffin make sure you visit her official website at - http://www.ashleygriffinofficial.com/