Ashley Malafronte is utterly obsessed with stories and the people who tell them. A Brooklyn-based director, dramaturg, educator, and editor, Ashley holds a BA from Muhlenberg College and a MA from the Univeristy of Texas- Austin. Recent directing credits include Mad Forest (Waterwell/PPAS), Legally Blonde, JR. (Children’s Theatre of Madison), The Emancipation of Sugar & Baby (Weasel Fest @ The Brick), and serving as associate director for KJ Sanchez’s production of Private Lives (Arizona Theatre Company/ SDCF Noël Coward Fellow). Additional credits include A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shipwreck Theatre Co.), Cent’anni (Cohen New Works Festival), [app]arition (The Navigators), And the Trees Fall Down (Center at West Park), and The Last Blueberry on Earth (WOW Cafe Theatre). She has also assisted for Erica Schmidt, Jim Peck, and the Rude Mechs. Ashley has created site-specific work at the Pier House (Inis Mór, Ireland), Whiting Mills (Winsted, CT), her actual kitchen/cyberspace (Austin, TX/elsewhere), and in various locations with A Broken Umbrella Theatre (New Haven, CT). She is currently Senior Editor for HowlRound Theatre Commons and the Head of Theatre Studies for the Waterwell Drama Program at the Professional Performing Arts School, where she teaches conservatory-style theatre history courses informed by civic-minded pedagogy. As a teacher, she urges students to be thoughtful, active consumers of theatrical events and intentional, collaborative theatre practitioners. As a theatremaker, of course, she aims to be both of these things herself. ashleymalafronte.com