THEATRE

Brett Ashley Robinson

Brett Ashley Robinson is a 2021 Pew Fellow as well as a Barrymore Award-winning actor director, theatremaker, and educator based in Philadelphia. She directed the world premiere of  Abandon by James Ijames, which won the 2023 Barrymore for Outstanding Original Production. And her 2024 production of Once Upon a Bridge won the Philadelphia Award for Social Insight. She is the 2021 winner of the PEN America/ Jean Stein Oral History Grant for her original work Re-Enactment. She was also a semi-finalist for the Otto F. Haas Award for Emerging Artist and a two-time nominee for the Golden Tassel Jawn, Philadelphia’s Drag and Burlesque Awards, for best comedy act as Patricia! She was a collaborator and performer in Lightning Rod Specials The Appointment at New York Theatre Workshop, a New York Times Critics Pick and voted best play of 2019 in The New York Times, Vulture Magazine, Time Out New York, and New York Magazine.

As a director, she has created original theater and directed at The Wilma Theater, The Arden, Lantern Theater Company, Theater Exile, Tiny Dynamite, Inis Nua, The Bearded Ladies, Theater Horizon, Arcadia University,  The University of the Arts, Drexel University, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.  As an actor and devisor she has worked at UTR , Ars Nova Ant Fest, Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Wilma, Lightning Rod Special, Pig Iron Theater Company, The Arden Theatre Company, InterAct Theatre Company, The Flea Theatre, Theatre Horizon, Asolo Rep  and Geva Theatre. 

As Patrica! She has worked with  1812 Productions, The Bearded Ladies Cabaret, Lightning Rod Special, Agitated! Portland Center Stage, JACK NY, Theater Exile, The Cannonball Festival, and Ars Nova AntFest. She has taught acting at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, University of the Arts, Desales University, and Drexel University. She is a company member of Applied Mechanics, an immersive theater company based in Philadelphia, and a member of the HotHouse–the Wilma Theater’s resident acting company. She loves a buck a shuck oyster and Vino Verde