AUSTIN DEAN ASHFORD

Born and raised in the Bay Area, Ashford's journey has taken him from the debate halls of Marshall, Texas—where he competed as a member of The Great Debaters of Wiley College, earning an astounding 21 national championship titles—to stages and classrooms worldwide.

A proud graduate of the University of Arkansas with dual MFAs in Acting and Playwriting (2019), Ashford quickly made his mark, garnering top honors at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, the United Solo Festival in New York, the San Diego International Fringe Festival, and the Dunedin and New Zealand Fringe Festivals. His work fuses traditional and emerging performing arts and storytelling methods to explore counter-histories and Afrofuturism, resonating deeply with audiences from all walks of life.

In 2021, he earned a Latin Grammy nomination, headlined the first of two independent U.S. tours (2021 and 2023), and released three studio albums that collectively surpassed 1 million streams on Spotify. As a U.S. Embassy Music Exchange Fellow, he has used his art to foster cultural exchange and community building, leading programs for OneBeat Colombia (2021),and NextLevel Ecuador (2022) and Peru (2024).

Ashford is currently the inaugural Artistic Director of Flanner House Arts Stage Academy in Indianapolis and a 2024–2025 Artist in Residence at Z Space Equity Theatre in San Francisco. With plans to complete his Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Fine Arts at Texas Tech University in May 2025, Austin Dean Ashford is redefining what it means to be a multidisciplinary artist in today’s world.