Ash Baker
Actor, Director & Teaching Artist
Past Directing & Producing highlights
New-Work Reading Event:
THE WOMAN OF ANDROS
Stage adaptation by John Baron
from the original 1930 novel by Thornton Wilder
Produced by Ash Baker
in collaboration with Tappan Wilder / The Thornton Wilder Family & Rosey Strub
@thorntonnwilder | www.thorntonwilder.com
February 2024
“Your talent and your supreme attention to detail were simply amazing. Glad I could be a part of the experience.”
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Ash Baker
Musical Direction by Ruby Day
Choreographed by Victoria Gusciora
Produced by Shakespeare On The Water / Isabelle Ellington
Sponsored by Marin Made
@shakespeareonthewater
September 2023
ONLINE FEATURES
Latitude 38 - Shakespeare on the Water Comes to the Sausalito Waterfront
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“ “In case she was modest, Isabelle is extraordinary,” explained Ash Baker, who is a teacher at Tamalpais High School. “She has put her all into this. It’s really amazing to see her have this success.” Baker is modest too: She abridged the original play into a seamless one-hour production — easy to understand for younger audience members, with clear storytelling. Under her direction emerged a deeply humorous but classic story of love, mischief, and magic.
“My students are my creative inspiration. They are a daily reminder of why I started. Regardless of what my students go off and do with their lives, I love to see how theater brings them friends, community, and safety on campus,” said Baker. “Everything makes sense coming back to this as a teacher.” ”
Secret San Francisco - The Best Way To Watch This Shakespeare Play Is From A Kayak
Shakespeare on the Water features two floating shows of A Midsummer Night's Dream on the bay in Sausalito.
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“In early September, a group of kayaks and boats will gather in Sausalito to watch a uniquely Bay Area performance of one of Shakespeare’s most beloved plays. The floating show features a multi-generational cast, including students and classically trained actors who have come together to perform on the water... An abridged version of the iconic A Midsummer Night’s Dream will be performed on the water with scenic Sausalito as the backdrop. ”
ORLANDO
By Sarah Ruhl from the original by Virginia Woolf
Directed by Ash Baker
Choreographed by Iu-Hui Chua
Produced by Conservatory Theater Ensemble & The Tam High Foundation
@ctetamdrama / CTE Website
December 2022
Director’s Note
Adapted from the original 1928 novel by Virginia Woolf, Orlando by award-winning playwright Sarah Ruhl, transcends two great constructs: Gender and Time. Free from these, we will celebrate the appetite, fluidity, turbulence, and joy of the human spirit without limits.
Orlando, composed of many selves, elapses five centuries of history, embracing adventures, lovers, and a number of poem drafts. Finally, after much yearning, Orlando arrives in the present and comes home to The Self, aging only thirty six years in the process. Oh - and somewhere along the way, our hero becomes a heroine! Like the protagonist, this story contains multitudes. It is part biography, part fabulation, all poetry.
Woolf’s ‘Orlando: A Biography’, written in dedication to her love, author and aristocrat Vita Sackville-West, is considered to be one of the longest love letters in literature and was a radical novel of the time.
Based, in essence, off the real life Vita, Orlando challenges the biographical genre, looking between fact and fiction, and asks us to consider the gray area when looking for truth. History is born of memory. Therefore, a writer’s point of view, Woolf argued, renders biography a kind of fiction, memory a kind of fact. Somewhere in the middle, amidst the interconnectedness and relativity of human experience, truth can begin to be captured.
Challenging genre was, of course, not the only thing that made this novel notable for the time. Orlando was inspired by and about, among other things, queer love! This story’s distinctly LGBTQIA+ and feminist themes are its heartbeat and stand the test of time with today’s artists, students and audiences. Ruhl’s ‘Orlando’ for the stage is playful, poignant and prompting. Watching our cast take ownership of this piece was a daily joy.
Thank you for joining us tonight as the cast reads Virginia’s love letter aloud!
THE HOBBIT
By Patricia Gray from the original by J.R.R. Tolkien
Directed by Ash Baker
Produced by Conservatory Theater Ensemble & The Tam High Foundation
@ctetamdrama | CTE Website
December 2023
“The staging was incredible - so inventive and truly effective and beautiful to experience. The students were so obviously present and having a great time. It was a joy to watch and be inside.”
Director’s Note
… Together, The Hobbit, The Lord of The Rings and The Silmarillion details an expansive and seemingly never-ending universe of fictional histories, poems, tales, invented languages, lineage and culture. Middle Earth, with its own creation mythos and topography, is where this story takes place “From Underhill, through the Wilderland, to the Lonely Mountain.” Time, “Long ago in the quiet of the world.”
Condensing this boundless story into an hour and a half adaptation for the stage was a victory. I hope those familiar with the original relish discovering what Patricia Gray has careful chosen to include. I hope those hearing this story for the first time will connect with the heart-centered theme: Bravery can be found in all of us if we simply answer the call. Take risks, leave your comfort zone, you have what it takes…
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Jon Demegillo & Ash Baker
Assisted by Will Freas
Produced by Marin Shakespeare Company
MarinShakes Teen Company 2024
Education Director Elana Kepler
July 2024
Teen Company presents an abridged production of Shakespeare’s romantic comedy, Much Ado About Nothing.
THE SPONGEBOB MUSICAL
Co-Directed by Ash Baker & Jenny Boynton, Musical Direction by Malik Charles Wade I
Produced by Yes! To Kids, Program Manger Anna Barker
March 2024
Hello from the SpongeBob creative team!
YES Theater began in Ross Valley in 1981. This unique award-winning program has been offering children high quality, entertaining, theatrical productions in the public schools of our community for over 30 years. YES Theater produces full scale Broadway musicals, original works by local playwrights, children’s theater favorites, musicals, comedies, even a bit of Shakespeare. . . all starring our children. Hundreds of YES students from the Ross Valley schools each year experience first hand participation in professional, quality, theatrical productions. The Program offers an opportunity for students to have fun while learning new skills. Theater incorporates listening, reading, memory, teamwork, self-discipline and a host of other educational opportunities.
- Anna Barker, Program Manager
“And, I LOVE how you are with the kids - your love of the theater arts is so contagious. It was like miracle grow for (Student Name) !”
HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL
Disney’s High School Musical: On Stage!
Directed by Ash Baker, Assistant Directed by Jenny Boynton, Choreographed by Skylar McMarrow
Produced by Yes! To Kids, Program Manager Anna Barker
April 2023
