Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashley Karp.
Hi Ashley, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
The earliest I can remember falling in love with film is when I was three years young. I remember my dad and I sitting down and he told me we were going to watch a movie. He turned on The Wizard of Oz. At first, admittedly, I wasn’t interested because it was in black and white. I remember my dad saying, “just wait”. When Judy Garland began to sing Somewhere Over The Rainbow, my heart opened up and my eyes widened. I was captivated! As soon as Dorothy landed, her house door opened up to the ‘merry ol’ land of Oz’, I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. From that moment, I fell absolutely in love with film.
I was a bit of a character growing up; God bless my parents! I was the kind of kid that would get up on a table at a family function and sing to whoever would listen. My parents enrolled me in a talent competition called the IMTA at six years young, starting in New York with a company called Tomorrow Talent. From there, I flew out with my dad to California, where the final rounds were held for a week. I had an absolute blast. The energy there was electric, and I adored every second of it. I won some awards, and I wound up booking a manager and agent at seven. They told my family we had to move out to California to make this dream of mine a reality. My family packed up a mini-van, attached a U-Haul to the back of it, and my entire family, including my little brother Tyler and little sister Mariah, who were both barely three and two years young at the time, moved across the country to California. My family did this TWICE. Forward and back. I participated in the IMTA twice as well, with my second time being at eight years young. For my second time through, I was more comfortable in the competition, won more awards and I was brought on to Abrams Artists in their commercial and voice-over division.
Unfortunately, the cost of living, along with trying to keep up with the industry at that time was too much for my family, so we relocated to New Mexico for a job offer my dad received. There I continued being homeschooled, hung out with Tyler and Mariah, watched the best anime ever, and kept on creating in little ways, like writing stories and song ideas. We eventually moved back out to California, where I grew up mostly in Burbank from middle school on, attending John Muir Middle School and Burbank High School for all years. I participated in every school production and every OI competition I could get my hands on. My brother, sister and I also played music together a lot, titling ourselves as the “anti” Partridge family. I played, and still play, Bass, my brother on guitar and my sister on the drums. It was either that playing video games non-stop (our favorite being Zelda) or going to an arcade growing up was our favorite way to spend time with each other. All three of us are super creative.
After High School, I wanted to go to a school where I could finally hone in on what I loved so much as a child, and decided to get my Associate at New York Film Academy located in California. From NYFA, I learned so much not only about myself but my potential to expand past what I already knew from my young age in film. Some of the teachers at NYFA really changed my life through my artistry as a creative as well, and I’m so grateful for them still today.
At that time, I also, through a very random turn of events, was asked to participate in Miss California USA. I originally wasn’t going to participate in the event because of the fees, but NYFA at the time was a co-sponsor for Miss California USA and actually co-funded my participation in the event. I ran as Miss Burbank, the city where I was from, and through that process, I grew more into my own skin than I was intending as well. I found my footing into my originality and finding ways to not conform to what beauty was trademarked as, but rather what I found beautiful to me. For the competition, you are supposed to have both a bathing suit and a formal wear gown. I knew that I didn’t want to follow the traditional route, so, for my dress, I found a $4 all-white dress at a local thrift store, went to Walmart and bought printable iron-on decals, popped said decals into my printer and printed out my favorite album covers from my favorite musical artists at the time that inspired my musical aspirations and still inspires me today.
For my bathing suit, I wanted to wear something that was true to me. I grew up in love with Star Wars, one of my dad’s favorite film series. My personal favorite is A New Hope. One of my all-time favorite characters in cinema is Princess Leia. At such a young age, I was in awe of how tenacious, quirky and how she was an absolute badass. Later in life, I came to love her as the brilliant actress, comedian and writer she was in her career. I decided for my bathing suit that I would wear Princess Leia’s slave outfit. For Leia, the moment she wore that outfit in Return of the Jedi was the moment she regained her freedom, defeating Jabba in the process. It was one of my favorite scenes of Leia, and I knew that that was what I wanted to showcase myself as. During that time, I was suffering with anorexia, and leaning into a powerhouse character like Leia made me feel powerful and unafraid to be on stage in a bikini in front of a ton of people. Ultimately, I didn’t win, which really didn’t matter to me because I felt like I won so much more personally through overcoming personal obstacles and growing more comfortable in my skin.
Through the years after NYFA, I submitted myself to anything non-union I could do and wound up performing background work multiple times for Glee, Grey’s Anatomy, and various films and commercials. Through that process, I became a must-join for SAG-Aftra, after being Taft Hartley through an Aetna insurance commercial I did as a kid. I am now a proud SAG-Aftra member, and love being in a union that cares about their creatives. I’ve since been on multiple voting committees through SAG and a ton of screeners with guest Q & A sessions, which are my personal favorite part of every award season.
What got me back into film was a couple of years ago, a good friend of mine Meagan ran into me at a birthday party, telling me she wanted me to film a short video for her Instagram showcasing her overcoming her hardships at the time. Through talking, we realized we had a lot more in common with each other than we originally knew, with her overcoming bulimia and I overcoming anorexia around the same time. When we began filming simple ideas, we realized we had more of a short film on our hands, and we created my first directed, DP’ed and co-edited short film True Center, showcasing Meagan’s journey through herself, finding her happiness at the center of who she is. We submitted to film festivals, ultimately making it into seven film festivals, including Fort Myers Film Festival and Burbank International Film Festival, also winning an award for cinematography. Through this film, I knew I wanted to continue to work behind the camera, finding a newfound love for directing and the creational whirlwind it stirred up in my soul. I have now directed short films, documentaries and theatre today. I love every aspect of filmmaking, truly, and through directing I’m able to see the big picture. It’s a love that I never want to go away!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Nothing in this lifetime is ever “smooth”, but I think that’s the best part about it. The trials and tribulations are actually what makes everything worth it. From old personal relationships to living circumstances to trying to just stay afloat emotionally or physically or mentally, for me, being creative always brings me back to me. I feel my best when I’m creating something, even if it’s just for me. For that, I’m grateful for all the peaks and valleys life has to offer because those moments make the great moments all the more rewarding.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
For the past few years, I have been directing both a multitude of films and theatre pieces. My film credits can be noted on IMDB for a full list of my work in those projects, as well as their awards and nominations in festivals they were a part of. These past three years in particular, I have been participating in a few play festivals as a director, one of which is the Hollywood Fringe Festival. The Hollywood Fringe Festival has been a blast to be creative with, and my plays that I directed, Not That Illegal, Cheater and Mayhem of the Music Meister: A Post-Covid Parody Play, have all been nominated for awards and encores. The casts of these productions were simply phenomenal in every way, and it was so much fun to create with those that are passionate about what they do and how they create.
Another festival I absolutely love to be a part of is the Short + Sweet Festival. I have been participating as a director in the festival for six years, with my first ever directed play being in the Short + Sweet festival titled El Marijuano, written by the brilliant Andrew Cervantes and starring Rene D’Nava and Giovanni Navarro. That play made it to the Latino finals and one of our actors, Giovanni Navarro, won a special award for his performance. Since then, I have directed four other short plays for the festival, and last year both of the short plays I directed, A World Apart written by Zarina Braybrooke and starring the fabulous Charlotte Munson and Day of Days, written by Gillian Perry and starring the stunning Genise Sherrill and Gillian Perry ALL won awards, with Day of Days winning the Judge’s Choice award for the entire festival run and all of my actresses winning separate awards for their performances, with Genise Sherrill and Charlotte Munson being awarded 2 of the top 5 Actor’s Circle awards for the festival and Gillian Perry winning a sponsored award by Superbloom. Being a part of every creation makes it all worth it, especially being alongside passionate, powerful creatives such as these ladies alone. Not to mention the incredible crew involved in making everything happen the way it does – it’s so motivating to see everyone shine so bright in their own light, and the camaraderie of the theatre community is simply beautiful in every way. I am so thankful for theatre in itself, helping breathe life back into my creative heart.
I’m so excited to also announce that I am the new Festival Director for Short + Sweet for this upcoming season and beyond, and I am simply ecstatic in every way. I love the theatre and the community it brings so much, and to be a part of it as a Festival Director is an absolute honor. I can’t wait to see what this next season of Short + Sweet brings!
I am also known for my self-created, written, directed, co-edited and co-acted Podcast series titled The Ol’ Timey Spectral Hour. The Ol’ Timey Spectral Hour is a scripted horror podcast series based on true terror tales and lore. The first season is out now on Spotify and Google Podcasts. The first film is currently in development, as well as a season 2 to be released in the coming months. I created this during the pandemic when everyone was deciding what past time they were going to focus on. I knew I had to be creative to get my head out of everything else that was happening around us in the world at that time, and I am fortunate enough to know a lot of creative friends. I got together a group of talented actors to jump on board and utilize their voiceover skills and thus Ol’ Timey was developed. It has since been accepted into a few festivals, including the Indie Series Awards and it also won an award for Best Podcast Series at the Kapow Intergalactic Film Festival!
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
I was a mix between an absolute extrovert to an incredible introvert. I loved both having my own time to myself, where I would sit and read everything from manga’s to comics to novels, listen to music for hours, watch movies, anime, cartoons, play video games with the siblings, or write non-stop, and on the flip, I’d love to hang out with friends and my brother and sister, go to the movies, explore new lands and ultimately enjoy life. At the end of the day, whatever I was doing had to be creative in some facet, which is still so true today. If I’m not being creative, I am not having the most fun I could be having.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ashleykarp.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/ashleykarp3
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/ashleykarp
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/ashleykarp3
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtTtxdxAkOBeSWGTpG_7vww
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/show/5NLQzoMhUs28Hi2haRmPhS
