Ash (they/she)

Biography

Ash (they/she) grew up in Portland, OR and currently resides in New York City. They have a background in both theatre and music, and they are an active composer, choral arranger, sound designer, playwright, music director for choir and theatre, and songwriter. They are queer, non-binary, Persian, hard of hearing, and a quintessential Virgo. She values storytelling as a means of connection, revelation, and celebration.

Ash is the former artistic director of Transpose PDX, a non-profit choral arts organization serving the trans and non-binary community, and her choral works and arrangements have been performed globally by various choirs, most popular with GALA Choruses like Portland Gay Men’s Chorus, NYCGMC, Bridging Voices, ANNA Crusis Feminist Choir, and more.

Credits for music direction and sound design include productions with Portland Center Stage (Dracula: a Feminist Revenge Fantasy Really, Choir Boy, tick, tick… BOOM!, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Macbeth), Artists Repertory Theatre (Sapience), Bag&Baggage (The Glass Menagerie, Beginnings & Endings), Between Us Theatre Co. (EGG; Velvet Rage; Texas Gothic), SpeakEasy Stage (English), Lower East Side Shakespeare Co. (The Words Will Come, BEE), Fuse Theatre Ensemble (Crumbs; Magnetic Electric), Milagro Theatre (2015 Drammy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Original Music for ¡O Romeo!), and Portland Actors Ensemble (2012 Outdoor Shakespeare Festival Award for Best Sound Design for Twelfth Night).

As a writer, they are currently developing Crumbs (musical; multiple readings), This Side of the Door (song cycle; table reads, residency, festivals), MOVE - BEND - FALL (short play trilogy; residency and readings), Magnetic Electric and The Dark Stuff (two plays by Mikki Gillette with music by Ash; premiere productions in 2025 and 2026), and other projects.

Ash was recently named one of two inaugural Writers-in-Residence for MusicalWriters.com. She has also been selected for National Queer Theater’s 2025 Criminal Queerness Studio, Fresh Binder’s Spring 2025 Writer’s Cohort, The Workshop Theater’s Fall 2025 Writers’ Intensive, PlayGround NY’s 2025-2026 Writer's Pool, Musical Writers’ Next Level Writers Lab, 46 Minutes Writers Group, and more. Her song “I’ve Heard the Stories” from her musical Crumbs was selected as a finalist in the 2025 Write Out Loud Contest.

Note: Ash does not use a last name personally or professionally, just the mononym Ash.