Rising Stars: Meet Ashley Taylor

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashley Taylor.

Hi Ashley, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
After college, I moved to Los Angeles. Hollywood, to be exact. After about six months, I discovered the valley, thanks to a doctor’s visit in Burbank. I thought to myself, “Why don’t more people live here? It’s like 20 minutes away from the city. There are still plenty of crazy folks to keep you entertained. The rent is so much cheaper, more bang for your buck. There’s parking everywhere! It’s a no-brainer!”

Then summer came, and yeah. THAT. That is why. It was over 100° for six weeks. I actually purchased shorts, which I had not owned in probably ten years. But I stayed. And I’m glad I did because the valley is home.

At first, I was the most interested in pursuing “real life”. After four years of theatre and art being EVERYTHING 24/7, I wanted a desk. A pen cup of my own. A steady paycheck! So, I went out and got it. And I enjoyed it, but after a year I realized that I don’t belong at a desk…at least not one that has nothing to do with acting or writing or producing theatre and film. After all, that’s why I moved to Los Angeles…

But that’s how I am. I will pour myself fully into a creative project and then need to take a small “real life” break. Then, I must have another creative project in which to dive headfirst. I can put my head down and churn out eight episodes of a web series. But then I need to see the redwoods and some snow. I wrote, produced, and performed in a successful play series for five years and then took a break to have a baby and stay home for a year. Sometimes these things happen in sequence, and sometimes (but more likely) I’ll be doing it all at once. And this pattern is woven into the fabric of my life. Maybe that’s why I like plaid so much. It’s a series of parallel lines going two different ways, crossing over each other, sometimes mixing and merging to make new colors and patterns, and then back on their way to the next intersection. My life can be found in those intersections.

Five years ago, I decided to become a teacher. I’d worked at a gift shop, a theatre, as a personal assistant, on several TV shows, a princess party store, and writing from home while caring for my infant son.

In 2015, my son had been at an amazing academic preschool called United Children’s Learning Academy for 18 months and I liked it there so much, I went back to school to get the certification I needed to become a teacher at that school. Additionally, I taught drama, art, and created over-the-top beautiful sets for all the recitals and events. I was doing anything and everything they needed in any creative capacity. The shining achievement may have been my rockin’ ’80s-themed preschool prom and a riveting candlelit performance of Bohemian Hannukah, performed by toddlers.

Around the same time I started teaching, I auditioned for The Leather Apron Club at Theatre West and got the role. I had been away from acting for a couple of years, so I felt intimidated and rusty going full-force into my first big dramatic play. But, soon I felt totally at home and remembered the amazing feeling that comes with theatre. It was the role of a lifetime and a difficult but rewarding experience. Theatre West very quickly became my theatrical home and thanks to the awesome workshops they hold every week for members, I started writing more, acting more, and volunteering for any creative project they threw my way. I designed a set for Storybook Theatre’s Peter Rabbit. I built new beauty boards and decorated them weekly with pictures and info for current shows. I wrote monologues and plays and silly scenes. I met the most wonderful encouraging people that allowed my talents to shine in several different arenas. When Covid struck down live performance in its tracks, we quickly picked up on Zoom and adapted to online theatre/film/writing. And that’s where we are now!

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?
A smooth road… No. Of course not! That would be too easy. But, honestly, I don’t know that any artist/actor has a particularly smooth road, even when things are going well. We are our own worst critics and that self-doubt will keep us from creating art, or at least from sharing the art we’ve made. A lot of my roadblocks have been those of my own making, which is weird because I consider myself a fairly confident person. But I have…um…“discipline issues” when it comes to giving that artistic confidence a home. An outlet. I tell my husband stories and plays and tv shows that are fully formed in my head. His reply is always, “Put that down on paper!” And I try. Sometimes I even succeed. But sometimes I feel like if I haven’t been given a specific assignment, I don’t know how to begin. And at the same time, I have always created theatre and art and crafts and silly stories in everyday life, just for the sake of it being out there to entertain whomever is on the other end. Not everyone has that ability, so I consider myself lucky in that way.

One of the most frustrating things for me, as an actor, is the inability to control which roles I get to experience. Every audition is a potential opportunity to pour myself into a new skin and that’s incredibly exciting. But if I don’t book the role (and most of the time, I don’t…) that road is blocked. It becomes someone else’s adventure and it’s out of my hands. And that’s okay; it’s just life in this field. But enough roadblocks went up for me that I decided to create my own roles. That’s something I’ve been doing since grade school, just creating roles that I want to play and forming entire scenes, plays, shows, and series around that role. And in doing so, I also created interesting roles for other actors I felt needed to have their talents showcased. Some people hate deadlines and impossibly challenging schedules, but that’s where I thrive. It’s that pressure cooker environment that has helped to create some of my best work, be it acting, writing, set design, or whatever. If I have even started a script before the day it’s due, it’s an anomaly. I will craft things in my mind for weeks, but it gets typed out, memorized, painted, and edited in the 11th hour. My dad has said that my propensity to procrastinate until I’m up against a deadline (and then churn out the goods at the last second) is both my greatest struggle and my greatest gift. He’s not wrong.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am first and foremost, from the depths of my soul, an actor. That is the thing I’d rather do, as a career, than anything else, though I wouldn’t say that’s the thing at which I am the best. Not the acting part, but everything else. Actors have to constantly promote themselves and their accomplishments: schmooze, fight, photograph, seek out auditions and opportunities, study, refine, take criticism, harden their shells, sharpen their skills. It’s exhausting. That’s probably why I keep taking breaks. I can’t fully give myself over to one thing that takes that amount of self-discipline. To clarify: For an individual play or show, YES; I’ll give it everything I have for as long as it takes. In a perfect world, I’d be on a comfortable sitcom for a decade, giving it 100% every day. And I’d do everything else in my spare time: theatre, art, comedy, writing, traveling. But the big picture long game that leads up to any amount of success… Oof. I admire people who have the tunnel vision it takes to make it in any one specific field that really sets their heart on fire. I lack that singular focus.

I need small creative projects to channel my creativity, ones that give you short term positive tangible results of your efforts. So maybe today I’ll paint and decorate that sad little corkboard I found in the alley last week and hang it in my son’s at-home schoolroom. A doable mini project like that gives me great satisfaction and helps to generate the internal spark that keeps me going into the longer and open-ended career pursuits. I truly do not specialize in any one discipline because I really want to dabble in everything. I love writing and I think I’m pretty good at it, but I don’t think I could be a full-time writer. I love to paint and craft and create something special out of a pile of nothing-in-particular, but I don’t want to host a crafting YouTube channel or anything. I love making Halloween costumes, but I’m no designer. I’ll take any creative challenge for a whirl, but I don’t think I’m destined to be one particular thing…

And I’m okay being known like that, as a person who excels at a lot of little things. I know I tell interesting stories, in whatever medium. I’m a good actor/writer/artist/comedian/producer. I know for a fact that I’m a great wife and mom. (Those are my two favorite roles and the ones of which I am the most proud.) Stephen and Killian Taylor are two exceptional beings that continues to challenge and inspire me.

OH, WAIT! I did just win a little playwriting competition. And they turned my script into a short play (a film, really, seeing as how it was all online) that premiered in the Together LA Virtual Stage Festival. That was a brand-new and totally awesome experience, all done from our respective houses. Amazing. Art will always find a way…

Last thing: Thought I’ve done it before, I do NOT have any desire to direct…

Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs or other resources you think our readers should check out?
There are so many sources of information and inspiration. We recently lost Alex Trebek, which just guts me. Generally, when elderly celebrities die, it doesn’t really sadden me. Living a long, healthy, fulfilling life is the goal, isn’t it? I’m thrilled when people accomplish that. But Jeopardy is my all-time favorite show and I know a little about a LOT of subjects because of it. I hope that I’ll be as educated and entertained by whomever replaces him, but dang, that will be a tough position to fill. All this to say that Jeopardy is a favorite of mine because it challenges my mind and memory and I learn so much. I find trivia very inspiring. It keeps your brain milk from curdling.

My favorite author of all time is David Sedaris, who mostly writes personal essays. I have never known anyone who can take the stories of everyday life, even as mundane as picking up garbage on the side of road in rural England, and make them so rich, hilarious, and fascinating. He is at once totally relatable and insanely inspirational. Particularly, I love that he’s always totally open with the facts of the stories, even if they are not at all flattering to himself, and how he verbally decorates them with his thoughts and feelings about whatever the situation in which he finds himself. I laugh out loud regularly, which says a lot right there. He is a national treasure, I tell you! I saw him read live once and it ranks right up there in my top-10 best experiences. I wish I could have stayed to meet him afterward, but I think I’d prefer to meet him in real life. It will happen someday.

There are so many more but who can list all their influences?! Instead, here is some advice: Read and showcase material by underrepresented groups. Challenge yourself to do something you’ve always wanted to do, no matter how insignificant it may seen. Ask people you trust how they see you and examine the way it measures up with how you see yourself. (This one is not an easy task, but it is a helpful one.) Lastly, look up from your devices and take in the world around you. Inspiration is EVERYWHERE! <3

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: @verytopshelf
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ashley.taylor.902604
• Youtube: https://youtu.be/_vU_q9MXVqg – the Keepers, a web series I wrote
• Other: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4779452/