Ash (they/she) is an active composer, playwright, songwriter, sound designer, and music director for choir and theatre.
She writes both musicals and plays and was recently named an inaugural Writer-in-Residence for MusicalWriters.com. She has been selected for National Queer Theater’s 2025 Criminal Queerness Studio, Fresh Binder’s Spring 2025 Writer’s Cohort, The Workshop Theater’s Fall 2025 Writers’ Intensive, MusicalWriters.com‘s Next Level Writers Lab, and 46 Minutes Writers Group.
Her choral work has been performed globally. As a proud queer, trans, and Persian artist, their storytelling emphasizes connection, revelation, and celebration. Portland raised, NYC based. MusicByAsh.com
MusicalWriters sat down with Ash to discuss her musical origins, current projects, and tips for fellow musical writers.
How did you get started writing musicals?
Ash: I took piano lessons as a kid… and hated it. I was always changing the rhythms, melodies, and chords to my teacher’s dismay. I like to credit that to the composer in me (and not to any unruliness, surely). I eventually found my way back to the piano and started writing songs in high school. And then I arranged choral music in college. And then I wrote songs for Shakespeare shows for community theatre. And then I wrote my first full musical in 2013. And then, and then, and then… Becoming a writer was a slow and meandering route, but one that feels like it was always inevitable.
What are you working on right now?
Ash: I’ve been hard at work building my show THIS SIDE OF THE DOOR for the last two-ish years, and now that it’s got a really solid shape, I’m starting to dream up my next musical. While my current show is incredibly intimate, small in scope/scale, and leans into a traditional musical theatre sound and song cycle form, I’m itching to write something way bigger, something cosmic in scale, and leaning on my choral composition background. I don’t know what it is yet, but MusicalWriters will be the first place to know about it, that’s for sure!
What’s a lesson you’ve learned from your writing journey that you’d like to share?
Ash: As the writer, you have to filter all the feedback you’re getting through the lens of what you’re trying to accomplish (and you have to confidently know what that is). AND you have to also lean into the questions you don’t have the answers to. It’s a game of balancing stubbornness with curiosity.
Writing a musical isn’t easy. What’s your “why” in being a musical writer?
Ash: As a queer and trans person of color, I want to create art that is by us, for us, and for all. I’m passionate about creating theatre that cultivates empathy, challenges audiences, and tells new stories (or old stories in new ways). I value storytelling as a means of connection, revelation, and celebration. I think stories are incredibly powerful, and honestly, writing them feels less like a choice and more like a compulsion, like gravity, like a calling. But believe you me, it’s a thing you have to choose to do again and again, when the terrain of the industry is so hard to navigate and especially when the urge to stop sounds like the most reasonable voice in the room.
What was the first “real performance” you’ve had of your work? How did that performance come to be, and what did you learn from it?
Ash: I self-produced a 29-hour reading of my first musical Crumbs in 2013, and it was simultaneously affirming and confounding. The show was taking some big swings (incredibly small in narrative scale like a play while being larger-than-life in its pathos like an opera, no applause/song breaks, etc.), and some things landed and some things didn’t. After putting it away for nearly 10 years, then overhauling it, and doing a workshop run in a festival (again to mixed reception/success), I ultimately came away from it knowing that I needed to fully learn and execute all the “rules” of musical theatre before I could successfully break them. And that’s what I’ve been doing since!
Ash and cast members from a Crumbs reading.
Congrats on being named one of the first Writers in Residence for MusicalWriters.com! What did you think when you found out?
Ash: My arm is still sore cause I can’t stop pinching myself! I’m OVER THE MOON to be working with MusicalWriters.com and excited for how we collaborate and what we get up to.
Why did you originally join MusicalWriters.com?
Ash: The writers groups were a big appeal (so that I could learn and grow but also connect with a community of writers), but also MusicalWriters is such a treasure trove of resources, templates, opportunities, etc., etc., etc. Who wouldn’t want to join that?!
Overall, I love the community as well. Everyone is so supportive and generous with their time, feedback, advice, etc., especially in the writers groups, where I’ve learned and grown so much.
MusicalWriters members have access to a monthly writing group as part of their membership. Click here to learn more.
What is your most memorable MusicalWriters moment so far?
Ash: Having songs featured at the 2025 New Works Cabaret, specifically hearing the near non-stop laughter at my song “Knock, Knock” (brilliantly performed by Elijah Ponce) and of course the moving performances of Kya James and Jason Philip Solis . That evening was the first public performance of songs from my show THIS SIDE OF THE DOOR: A SONG (to break out of the) CYCLE, and hearing what landed for audiences was both affirming and inspiring.
Watch Ash’s numbers from the cabaret below. View the entire 2025 New Works Cabaret online on MusicalWriters.com.
What are 3 things you’ve learned about musical writing that you’d like to share with our readers?
Ash: 1) Don’t stop (but take breaks when you need it). 2) Don’t aim for intellectually perfect at the expense of emotionally affecting (cause great storytelling is measured by the experience of an audience, not by their analysis after the fact). 3) And don’t be precious with the path (but be precious with the destination)!
What is the best way to get better as a musical writer?
Ash: Get really good at hitting “Save As” in your script or score, so you can let go of what was and write something better. In other words, don’t be precious with what you’ve written! Let it go! Try something new! You can always return to what you did before, but that’s best when it’s your north star, not an anchor weighing down your ship.
When you are not writing awesome musicals, what are you most likely to be doing?
Ash: Writing plays! LOL. (Seriously, I spend most of my time in writers groups for plays and musicals.) But when I’m not writing (or working) at all, I’m reading, seeing theatre, drinking too much coffee, and trying really hard to get my email inbox down to zero unread emails, like Sisyphus with his boulder.
In addition to your musical theatre writing, you have a huge catalogue of choral pieces and arrangements. How did you get started creating choral music?
Ash: It all started with my collegiate a cappella group (the Boston College Dynamics) where I immediately fell in love with arranging. I’ve been arranging and composing a lot ever since, and for a good decade there I was also choir directing. Now, arranging is my primary gig, and a big part of that has been working with GALA Choruses: a network of LGBTQIA+ choirs that’s opened up so many opportunities to craft choral music that I love and is mission-driven. Most of my original choral work is the result of commissions from choirs within the GALA Choruses network.
How do your choral and musical theatre writing projects influence each other?
Ash: Mostly in the direction from theatre to choir. When I create a choral piece (arrangement or original), I always think about the storytelling first: arc, climax, textures, programmatic context, etc. I love when a director tells me why they’ve programmed that piece or what they want to highlight within it. The musicals I’ve been writing thus far haven’t featured a lot of choral writing, but that’s mostly the result of crafting small-cast shows that are focused on individualistic experiences. But when choral writing does pop up in them, it’s always in service of the storytelling. Everything is stories!
Do you have any advice for someone interested in self-publishing their own arrangements or compositions?
Ash: 1) Make sure your scores are easy to read as possible! Engraving is a science and an art, and good engraving significantly helps get your music noticed and performed. 2) Difficult/complex does not equal better. My most popular choral works (both in reception and in sales) have been those with clear goals for an emotional payoff. You’ll stand out when you can do more with less. 3) Use ArrangeMe to publish your arrangements and compositions!
For more information about self-publishing with ArrangeMe, visit this MusicalWriters.com article.
Do you have any favorite choral pieces from your catalogue that you’d like to share?
Ash: That’s so hard to pick! For an original, I’d probably say “When Darkness Falls,” which I wrote original text and music for. I wrote that for a choral composition competition (try saying that 3 times fast), and it won! I was having a hard winter, and my motivation was to write what I needed to remember. I basically wrote the whole thing in one sitting. Any time something feels that effortless, it feels that much more magical and special. (But don’t get me wrong, I also put a lot of work into editing, refining, and engraving that piece after the initial writing session!)
Listen to “When Darkness Falls” below.
Ash: (continued) For a true-blue arrangement, I’m gonna go with my gut and say “Winter Song,” which was based on the Leslie Odom Jr. cover of the Sara Bareilles / Ingrid Michaelson song. It’s also one of my most popular arrangements. I think it’s because the arrangement really takes you on a specific journey. It starts so simply and with unison singing, expressing doubt and yearning. And then it continues to grow in harmony, texture, and volume, until it finally erupts with a gigantic declaration of love that is wholly original to this arrangement. I really love this one a lot.
Listen to Ash’s arrangement of “Winter Song” below.
Do you have a website? What tool or service did you use to create it?
Ash: www.MusicbyAsh.com (Squarespace)
Do you use social media to promote your work?
Ash: Yeah! Mostly Instagram: @withmusicbyash and @thissideofthedoormusical
Just for fun: what’s your favorite “guilty pleasure” album to listen to on repeat?
Ash: The Amélie cast album (LONDON cast recording ONLY), but I don’t feel the least bit guilty about it. It’s SO. GOOD.
Lightning Round with Ash:
Coffee or tea? Coffee (everyday, any kind)
Cats or dogs? Dogs (this was hard)
Digital or analog? Digital (mostly)
Fly solo or team up? Solo
Pizza or Hamburgers? Pizza
Road Trip or Fly? ROAD TRIP
City, Country, or Suburbs? City!
Flip Flops or Crocs? Flippy Floppys
Apple or Android? Apple
Most recently used emojis? 💞
Last thing you texted? Hey, you started it.
Three things within arms reach right now? Passport, hacky sack, miniature derby hat
Thanks so much to Ash for sharing her time and talents with MusicalWriters!
Connect with – and learn more about – Ash at www.musicbyash.com.
