Ashleigh Ann Gardner

Ashleigh Ann Gardner (she/fae) is a Missouri-born and Orlando-based Autistic/ADHD theatre artist, specializing in multiple creative fields including photography, playwriting, prop fabrication, performance, and sound, costume, scenic, and graphic design.

Ashleigh began her theatre education at Valencia College in Orlando, transferring to the University of Central Florida in 2012. She went on to earn her Master's Degree in Literary, Cultural, & Textual Studies with concentrations in Victorian and Gothic literature, psychoanalytic theory, and gender studies from UCF in 2015.

As a professional entertainment photographer, Ashleigh captures photos that serve performers, designers, and production companies alike. Her approach to entertainment photography is holistic in nature, with a focus on providing a service that meets the needs of every artist — not just delivering a product. She strives to help performers feel confident and beautiful; for designers to feel proud and understood; and for companies to feel certain that they can sell their show with eye-catching media. Her photography has been featured in The Associated Press, The Orlando Sentinel, The Orlando Weekly, Watermark, and The Chicago Reader, among others, and she has photographed seasons for multiple Central Florida theatres and production companies including Renaissance Theatre Company, Orlando Family Stage, The Studio Theatre at Tierra del Sol, Opera Orlando, Osceola Arts, and Central Florida Community Arts, among others.

A playwright and member of The Dramatists Guild of America, Ashleigh’s writing focuses on themes of universal human experiences. Her critically acclaimed play Qualia (presented at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts in October 2019 and recently at Renaissance Theatre Company in January 2024) was the recipient of a $5,000 playwriting grant from New Generation Theatrical, and it has since been produced nationally in Orlando and Chicago. Her one-person show, The Not: a Midwestern Gothic horror, premiered at The Timucua Arts Foundation in February 2023. And her short play “Order, Control” was featured in the #theatreactionimmigration National Protest Plays Project in 2018.

Her scenic design work focuses on spaces that feel otherworldly, out of time, and uncanny, and her specialty lies in creating environments that delight, surprise, and entrance audience members like winter castle courtyards filled with floating birch trees, moldering Victorian barbershops, unsettling baby-doll-filled nurseries, stark white futuristic waiting rooms, and an enlarged line drawing of the map of Orlando — with a heart at the center. Her designs have been featured in productions staged by Renaissance Theatre Company and Central Florida Community Arts Theatre since 2018.

Her costume designs feature a wide range of styles, including bright 18th century English country folkwear, dark and lacy Victorian-inspired silhouettes, sparkling and whimsical avant-garde fashion, and softly feminine early 19th century aesthetics. She maintains a working knowledge of period-respective undergarments ranging from the early 18th to early 20th centuries, and is the caretaker of a small collection of antique Victorian ensembles from ca. 1825 - 1900.

For more, visit ashleighagardner.com | Instagram: @word_bird