The team
Ashley Robinson
BOOK / CONCEIT
Ashley is a writer and actor who’s penned the upcoming play adaptation of Annie Proulx’s Brokeback Mountain. Proulx says of the adaptation that “Ashley’s script is fresh and deeply moving, opening sight lines not visible in the original nor successive treatments…” He’s currently adapting Come Back To The Five & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean into a musical, music by Dan Gillespie Sells (Everybody’s Talking About Jamie) and lyrics by Shakina Nayfack (Connected, Transparent Music Finale).
Ashley is a UCross Foundation writing resident.
Selected acting credits include London’s West End: Floyd Collins (Floyd), Casa Valentina, Merrily We Roll Along. New York: A Clockwork Orange (New World Stages), A Christmas Memory (Capote, Irish Rep, Outer Critics Award Nominee), Little Rock. Regional/Other: Giant (originated role of Jett Rink, Signature, Helen Hayes Nom–Best Actor), Bright Star (World Premiere), Wicked, The Last Goodbye (Williamstown), The Last Five Years. TV/Film: Hate, Stan and Ollie. Ashley is a graduate of the North Carolina School of the Arts.
To learn more about Ashley, click the link below:
joseph Thalken
MUSIC
Joseph Thalken is an award-winning composer, conductor and pianist whose theater and concert works have been performed internationally. His music has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Somerled Charitable Foundation and the Shen Family Foundation. He is also the composer of the musicals Harold and Maude, Was, Fall of ’94, And the Curtain Rises, and Borrowed Dust, and his concert works encompass chamber, choral, orchestral, wind ensemble and vocal music.
He has served as music director and/or arranger for luminaries of Broadway and classical music, including Julie Andrews, Liza Minnelli, Rebecca Luker, Patti LuPone, Bernadette Peters, Renée Fleming, Kristin Chenoweth, Polly Bergen, Faith Prince, Marin Mazzie, Elizabeth Futral, Catherine Malfitano, Denyce Graves, Joshua Bell, Michael Crawford, Howard McGillin, Jason Danieley, Nathan Gunn, Rodney Gilfry and Brian Stokes Mitchell. After graduating from Northwestern University, he spent five years in Europe, where he worked as a coach, conductor and composer. He has taught music theater composition at Yale University and is a long-time resident of New York City.
ELLEN fitzhugh
LYRICS
Ellen is an Emmy, Drama Desk and Tony nominated lyricist.
Musicals: With the inimitable Harold Prince: Grind with Larry Grossman, Diamonds and Paradise Found; Herringbone with Tom Cone and Skip Kennon; Big Blonde with Kennon, developed at Playwrights Horizons and The Public Theater; Paper Moon with Marty Casella and Grossman; Muscle with James Lapine and William Finn; book and lyrics to Los Otros with Michael John LaChiusa, directed at the Mark Taper by Graciela Daniele and at Everyman Theater by Noah Himmelstein.
Other: two lyrics within Adam Guettel’s Myths and Hymns; additional lyrics for Anthony Newley’s Chaplin; songs for sequels of The Brave Little Toaster with Finn; title song for MGM’s That’s Dancing with Grossman and Henry Mancini; songs for Disney’s The Great Mouse Detective with Grossman and Mancini. Member of Dramatists Guild.
SHAWN RENE GRAHAM
DRAMATURGE
Shawn Rene is a freelance writer and dramaturg from San Jose, California who has worked with many writers including Dennis Allen, France-Luce Benson, Nilo Cruz, Steve Harper, Walter Mosley, Lynn Nottage, Paul Rudnick, Susan Sontag, Dominic A. Taylor, Judy Tate, and Cori Thomas. She has been a guest dramaturg at the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, the Crossroads Theatre Company’s Genesis Festival, the New Professional Theatre, and African American Women’s New Play Festival; and has served on many panels including the National Endowments for the Arts/Theatre Communications Group Theatre Residency Program for Playwrights, the Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Grants Panel in Playwriting, and the Mark Taper Forum’s New Works Festival. She is currently the resident dramaturg of The American Slavery Project’s Unheard Voices, the Director of Literary Programs at The Classical Theatre of Harlem, and founder of All Creative Writes, an artistic assistance service designed to provide individual artists and performing arts organizations with administrative, fundraising and writing support. Ms. Graham holds degrees from the California State University, Los Angeles and the American Repertory Theatre Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University. She joined The Field in 2012 and lives in Bronx, NY.
