Ashley Renee Thaxton-Stevenson
Educational Theatre Adjunct Faculty
Music and Performing Arts Professions
Ashley Renee Thaxton-Stevenson (she/her/hers) is a theatre maker, educator, and nonprofit administrator originally from Southern California, with Black, white, and Korean ancestors.
As a theater maker and educator, her work is focused on antiracist actor training, collaborative rehearsal practices, and contemporary adaptations of Shakespeare. She holds an MFA in Acting from Brooklyn College where she was a Graduate Teaching Fellow and was awarded the Dean’s List Thesis Award for her work on Caryl Churchill’s Fen. In addition to her MFA education, she has trained with Fiasco Theatre Company, Scott Miller Voice Method, Nicole Brewer’s CTT (Conscientious Theatre Training), The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond (PISAB), artEquity, and RaceForward. Recent directing projects include Sea Longing (Parsnip Ship/Actors’ Theatre of Boston), Origen Story (Water House Collective), and the Living History Project (New Victory LabWorks). With NYU’s Program in Educational Theatre, she has worked as the Dramaturg and Vocal Coach of Looking for Shakespeare and the Stage Manager of New Plays for Young Audiences and is a member of the Verbatim Performance Lab’s Core Acting Ensemble.
As a nonprofit administrator, Ashley has worked in arts education and nonprofit administration at the 14th Street Y (Director, Teen Theater Summer Camp), Lineage Performing Arts Center (Director of Development and Education Programs), Brooklyn College (Marketing Assistant, Department of Theatre), and the Pasadena Musical Theatre Program (Company Manager).
Currently, she is the Education Manger at BAX | Brooklyn Arts Exchange. At BAX, Ashley facilitates exchanges between young artists, community members, and teaching artists, through BAX's Education programs.