We recently connected with Ashley Kay and have shared our conversation below.

Ashley, appreciate you joining us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

Success is a way of thinking. It cultivates a discipline of faith that you have to have in order to achieve anything in life. Success shouldn’t be limited to just awards and promotions and achievements. One can experience success through everyday life like for example: someone making the choice to set healthy boundaries for themselves in order to achieve inner peace. Success is a greater positive & for me, I found my success not only in the awards that I won or the titles I hold in the industry, but success came when I started to heal the woman within me.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Let’s take it back to around 1991-92. I remember vividly watching a commercial on CBS (at that time it was Channel 2 in Detroit) for the movie Stompin at The Savoy and I remember seeing Vanessa Williams on the screen and I was immediately drawn to her. I said something along the lines : “I wanna be like her someday. “Fast forward to December of 2001 ,when my middle school was doing the musical, The Wiz, It was during that play when I had realized that my calling was with the performing arts. Since the high school I attended didn’t have a drama department, I had to make it my business to make sure that the college I would be attending had a vibrant theatre department where I would able to build and learn all that I need to know about Acting, writing, directing, etc.

When I first got to Saginaw Valley State University in the fall of 2006, it felt a bit lonely and nerve wrecking stepping into the theatre department not knowing anyone. So it took about a year and almost being on academic probation, where I decided to get serious about my studies and become more active in the theatre department by being more involved and developing relationships with my professors/directors. This lead to more opportunities that included being cast in several shows, being able to expand my knowledge in other areas such as: Stage Management, Set Lighting, Directing, and House Management. With all the hard work came with it, I was able to land an Acting scholarship going into my 4th year there. The icing on the cake for me was winning my 1st Acting award at the end of my college career for my role as Eunice in A Streetcar Named Desire in the Spring/Summer of 2011. Being able to take the risk and put myself out there allowed me to build confidence in myself and gave me a solid foundation to move forward in the Theatre/Film industry where a lot of trials & triumphs awaited me.

KAY88 Productions (formerly known as KAY Productions) was created in late 2013 after I had written/directed my 1st short film called “Happy to Be”. It was a selection in the 2014 Trinity International Film Festival and is now available to watch on YouTube. Since then I have written over a dozen comedy sketches, made another popular shirt that currently has over 50k views on YouTube Called Thriller in The Hood, and as of this year, I became an award-winning filmmaker with my latest short film, Forgive Us Not, taken home awards that include:

2022 Outstanding Achievement (4th Dimension Independent Film Festival, Bali, Indonesia

Black Excellence in Short Film, Best Director: 2022 Peach Theatre & International Film Festival

Best Short Film: 2022 October Screening for Beyond the Curve International Film Festival

The goal as an artist is to bring back the love, the passion, and the need for raw and unfiltered storytelling that gives artists from both production and talent to challenge themselves and bring on a new level of self-discovery that can bring out the best in the Artist but also allow them to expand their level in skill which can open more doors for them in the future.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson that I had to unlearn was that everything will always go as plan. One of my traits that can work as a gift & a curse for me is that I’m always planning 100 steps ahead but things don’t always go as plan in film. Sometimes, things fall apart so that they can come together.

In the most recent film I did FORGIVE US NOT, I had cast 3 additional actors to add more bodies to the group The Underground Black Force. Keep in mind, this story was adapted from the short play that I wrote & directed back in 2019 where the cast was only 5 people.. Two actors dropped out before the start of filming and one was recast. I say this to say that although I had plans to expand the cast, it fell apart but worked out in the end with 5 actors(as it was in the short play) with a last minute add on who played more as a shadow in the film, which brought a bit of a haunting element to it.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

So there was a period in my career I would say around 2015 where I was going on audition after audition and wasn’t booking anything. I started to feel discourage Eventhough I never expressed it openly, so it made me turn my focus to writing. The last audition I got for the year of 2015 was for a web series that was based in Detroit, and I told myself that if I don’t book this role, then I would be taken a long break from acting and that would be the sign that maybe I’m in the wrong industry. Thank God I gave it my all with the audition and booked the role on Christmas Day ! That lesson taught me that quitting is not an option no matter how bad things look naturally. If you have the power to not give up, then eventually, favor is going to come your way.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @thatsashleykay @kayproductions88 @forgiveusnotfilm
• Facebook: Ashley Kay, KAY88 Productions LLC
• Youtube: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCWcSdp_Sm4isYNWkO2awTww

Image Credits
Charles Kennedy Jr. Louie Dio Chris Wade Logan McLeod