Biography

Originally from White Rock, British Columbia, Ashlie directs both theatre and opera, working across Canada and internationally.

Ashlie is the Artistic Director Designate at Thousand Island Playhouse, and will take up the position at the end of the 2012 season.

As Artistic Producer of Theatre Smash, she has directed Abi Morgan's Tiny Dynamite, the company's Dora-nominated inaugural production, the staged reading of Lukas Bärfuss's The Bus, co-produced by Theatre Smash and the Goethe-Institut, Layne Coleman's Tijuana Cure, Graeme Gillis's A Boy Called Newfoundland and Marius Von Mayenburg's The Ugly One. In addition, Ashlie produced Theatre Smash's second main stage production Norway.Today.

A former Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio intern director, Ashlie directed the COC's production of William Walton's The Bear, the school tour of Cinderella (original production and remount) and Isis and The Seven Scorpions. She has apprentice directed Ring Cycle, Faust and La Traviata and assistant directed Tosca, Don Giovanni, Fidelio, Idomeneo and The Magic Flute at the COC. Overseas, she has worked as assistant director in the UK for Opera North's productions of Fidelio and Romeo et Juliette, as well as Der Fliegende Holländer at the Städtische Bühnen Münster. Ashlie was the assistant director for Barber of Seville at Vancouver Opera.

Ashlie was one of the Shaw Festival Director Interns for the 2009 season. At Shaw, Ashlie directed Seán O'Casey's Bedtime Story and assistant directed Brief Encounters (directed by Jackie Maxwell) and Albertine in Five Times (directed by Micheline Chevrier).

Other directing credits include: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Western Canada Theatre; Die Fledermaus, Cowtown Opera; The Gay Heritage Project, Buddies in Bad Times' Rhubarb Festival; The Venetian Ball, Villa Charities Opera & Pop Gala; Third Floor, Summerworks Festival; Short Story Long, Toronto Fringe Festival (invited to Best of the Fest Berkeley and Uptown); The Secret Garden & The Jungle Book, Resurgence Theatre; Tijuana Cure for Summerworks Festival; Luna, Luminato Festival's opera concert; A Boy Called Newfoundland, Gateway Theatre; Electronic City, Goethe-Institut; The Futures Market, The Wrecking Ball; Plighted Troths, Foundry Theatre; Be Kind to Mimes, Alumnae Theatre; The Play About the Baby at the Battersea Arts Centre; Moo, Beyond Chutleigh Productions. She has worked as an assistant director at Tarragon Theatre (No Great Mischief, assisting Richard Rose), the Shaw Festival (Afterplay, assisting Daryl Cloran), and Theatre by the Bay (A Midsummer Night's Dream and Romeo and Juliet, assisting Daryl Cloran and Mark Wilson).

Ashlie began her training at Queen's University, Kingston, ON, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) Degree in Drama. She received a Master's Degree in Directing, awarded with distinction, from Goldsmiths College at the University of London. These studies were funded through a British Foreign & Commonwealth Office Chevening Scholarship.

Other awards/grants Ashlie has received include: Theatre Ontario Professional Theatre Training Program Grant, Herstmonceux Castle International Study Centre Award and the Queen's University Lorne Greene Award (given to a graduating student for excellence in theatre practice). Ashlie has been nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award (for The Ugly One) and was short-listed for the Pauline McGibbon Award.

Ashlie is a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab, participated in a Goethe-Insititut / International Theatre Institute's directing residency at the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin, took part in Nightwood's Penelopiad Lab, was a member of Canadian Stage's BASH! 2010 program and was the 2010/11 Urjo Kareda Emerging Artist at Tarragon Theatre.

Upcoming: Ashlie is directing Dean Burry's The Brothers Grimm for the Canadian Opera Company.