Featured Student, Week 1: Ashleigh Bragg (‘19) Part of our countdown to the January 9 program application deadline!
Ashleigh Bragg is on stage knitting. Her character’s husband has shot himself in the next room, because he disowned their gay son, and that son was just killed in a hate crime. Ashleigh’s character simply wanted grandchildren, so she keeps on knitting. The music fades in and the lights fade out.
The piece is gut-wrenching. Nonetheless, Ashleigh cites it as one of the highlights of her first four months in New York City. See the piece on Youtube.
Ashleigh moved to New York from Oregon to pursue the MA in Applied Theatre. Here, Ashleigh is the third recipient of the CUNY Creative Arts Team/CUNY School of Professional Studies Graduate Apprenticeship for Diversity in Applied Theatre. As an Apprentice, Ashleigh receives funding for her studies and trains with Keith Johnston, Director of the Creative Arts Team’s College/Adult Program. Keith wrote the gut-wrenching piece, and he cast Ashleigh from his experience mentoring her. Connections continued to amplify Ashleigh’s moment on stage: Keith wrote the piece for the New Masculinities Festival, which is a project of Applied Theatre alumni, and the Festival took place at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Community Center. “That felt really good, to be up there on a stage in an environment that felt like a second home. It was an audience full of my people, doing a piece that said powerful things and brought up powerful discussion.”
In Oregon, Ashleigh studied and acted at Southern Oregon University and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. She was immersed in acting, which she loves, and she participated in a piece by civically-engaged theatre-maker Michael Rohd, where she learned that theatre could be used to foster dialogue and pursue social justice.
New York feels like a homecoming. In addition to performing and finding queer community, she observes that, for the first time, she is teaching to a class completely made up by students of color.
“It’s just not something I’m used to, coming from a place where I was working for all white people, as a person of color. My high school growing up, and also my college: all very white. It just feels so good to be around people like me, people that I relate to, and share ideas with them, and learn from them, and be surprised and inspired by them, as well.”
Ashleigh recognizes passion for theatre in some of her students, and imagines them coming to the MA in Applied Theatre: “I feel like the program—it’s very accepting of diversity, so I feel like they would be welcome to a program like ours, for everything they are, and they could feel free to express themselves and be creative, and their voices would be heard.”
The City also keeps Ashleigh on her toes. “There’s no time for me to feel shy or scared. Most everybody here, you feel is trying to do their thing 110%. Like someone playing violin on the train REALLY well, you’re just like ‘yes, thank you, I’m gonna go write that paper now.’”
Writing, studying, teaching, and performing fill Ashleigh’s time. However, when she pauses to think about her future, Ashleigh imagines founding a theatre that hosts dialogue and catalyzes community: “A space where people can share their important work, whether that be a masculinities festival, or an open mic night, or just a queer night. I could live and be in a space like that for the rest of my days.”