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Ashley Laverty is a theatre maker originally from Worcester, Massachusetts. She is the founding Artistic Director of Kerfuffle, a theatre and dance company devoted to creating performances with and for children under 6 year olds. Under her leadership, Kerfuffle has partnered with many arts and non-arts organizations to bring aesthetically exciting, engaging, and accessible theatre experiences to children around the country in museums, libraries, parks, and community centers. With Kerfuffle, she has developed and directed Toad Hall, The Conductors, Goose and Gert, Nested, and The Caterpillar's Footprint.
Ashley is a teaching artist and has 10 years of teaching artist experience, specializing in drama in the early childhood classroom. Currently, Ashley is proud to be a teaching artist with Lifeline Theatre, The Kennedy Center, Filament Theatre, and The Stage School. She is a certified children's yoga instructor, and she leads Professional Development workshops with classroom educators focused on Integrating Drama in the Early Childhood classroom.
Ashley is a director, playwright and actor, and has performed and had her work produced nationally at the Omaha Theater Company at The Rose, Brelby Theatre, Purple Crayon Players, National Theatre for Children, VEE Corporation, Roxy Regional Theatre, Vital Theatre Company and Storyland, a children's amusement park.
Ashley holds an M.F.A in Theatre for Youth from Arizona State University and a B.A. in Theatre Arts with a concentration in Musical Theatre from Point Park University's Conservatory of Performing Arts.
Ashley and her orange cat, Ron Weasley, are based in Chicago, IL.
news!
2023
Ashley Laverty is a theatre maker originally from Worcester, Massachusetts. She is the founding Artistic Director of Kerfuffle, a theatre and dance company devoted to creating performances with and for children under 6 year olds. Under her leadership, Kerfuffle has partnered with many arts and non-arts organizations to bring aesthetically exciting, engaging, and accessible theatre experiences to children around the country in museums, libraries, parks, and community centers. With Kerfuffle, she has developed and directed Toad Hall, The Conductors, Goose and Gert, Nested, and The Caterpillar's Footprint.
Ashley is a teaching artist and has 10 years of teaching artist experience, specializing in drama in the early childhood classroom. Currently, Ashley is proud to be a teaching artist with Lifeline Theatre, The Kennedy Center, Filament Theatre, and The Stage School. She is a certified children's yoga instructor, and she leads Professional Development workshops with classroom educators focused on Integrating Drama in the Early Childhood classroom.
Ashley is a director, playwright and actor, and has performed and had her work produced nationally at the Omaha Theater Company at The Rose, Brelby Theatre, Purple Crayon Players, National Theatre for Children, VEE Corporation, Roxy Regional Theatre, Vital Theatre Company and Storyland, a children's amusement park.
Ashley holds an M.F.A in Theatre for Youth from Arizona State University and a B.A. in Theatre Arts with a concentration in Musical Theatre from Point Park University's Conservatory of Performing Arts.
Ashley and her orange cat, Ron Weasley, are based in Chicago, IL.
news!
2023
- Ashley is directing and teaching Swingin On a Star, a youth musical with The Stage School, starring young people ages 6-14.
- Directed Kerfuffle's remounted production of The Conductors, which performed in six Chicago parks through the Park District's Night Out in the Parks series.
- Served as the teaching artist for Lifeline Theatre's Stories Come Alive workshops for their play, Extra Yarn.
- Directed Kerfuffle's remounted production of The Conductors, which toured to eight Chicago parks through the Park District's Night Out in the Parks series.
- Directed and developed Kerfuffle's newest play for very young children, Toad Hall, with SUNY Potsdam student artists in New York. It was performed as a part of the 10th annual LoKo Arts Festival from April 29 - May 1.
- Led two Arts Integration workshops with Theatre and Dance students at Ball State University. The workshop was focused on integrating drama in elementary school classrooms.
- Taught a week-long Teaching Artist residency in Elgin, Nebraska through the Nebraska Arts Council. She led a week of Creative Drama, Improv, Acting, and Musical Theatre with K-8 grade students! To book Ashley for a residency, check out the NAC teaching artist roster.
- Ashley is a teaching artist with The Kennedy Center! On December 7, she was the guest artist for NHSA In the Classroom, a partnership between the Kennedy Center and National Head Start Association. In 2020, as a part of "Teaching Artists Present", Ashley created a Yoga/Creative Drama video for TKC's video archive!
- Directed and developed The Conductors with Kerfuffle and The Connecting Routes Project.
- Directed Kerfuffle's inaugural Chicago production of Goose and Gert.
- Ashley's play Where Our Stuff Goes was selected for development with the Purple Crayon Players. Watch the virtual reading here.
- Kerfuffle received the American Alliance of Theatre and Education's Zeta Phi Eta-Winifred Ward Outstanding New Children's Theatre Company Award.
photo above by Bill Stitzman, Omaha Magazine
