FST Mourns the Loss of James Ashford

February 9, 2022 – Sarasota

Florida Studio Theatre (FST) is saddened to announce the passing of James Ashford, who started out as an Acting Apprentice and went on to become FST’s Coordinator of Casting and Hiring. During the 21 years that Ashford was a part of FST, he worked with the theatre’s WRITE A PLAY program, served as the Assistant to the Artistic Director, and cast shows for over 12 Seasons. 

“James worked at FST for more than two decades and contributed his heart and soul to the theatre,” said Richard Hopkins, FST’s Producing Artistic Director. “We are grateful for his significant and invaluable contributions to the growth of FST. We are deeply saddened to learn of his passing.”

“I was very fond of James from the early days when I worked with him as an acting intern, appearing in James and the Giant Peach,” said Kate Alexander, FST’s Associate Director At-Large and Founder of the theatre’s WRITE A PLAY program. “Even back then, it was clear that he was so intelligent, inquisitive, sensitive and kind. He found an artistic home here at FST and we all grew—as people and as leaders of a theatre—together. He really found his stride as the Casting Coordinator, working with agents, actors, and contributing to the artistic process. He had a unique gift of helping actors know and feel that they were part of something larger, that they were essential to FST’s mission.”

During his tenure as FST’s Coordinator of Casting and Hiring, Ashford was responsible for finding the casts and design teams for many significant readings and productions, from Metamorphoses (2005) and Shear Madness (2011) to Monty Python’s Spamalot (2014) to Bright Star (2020).

“James and I both started our careers at about the same time. And we both found a family at FST in those early years,” said Jeffrey Plunkett, an actor who has performed in a dozen FST productions. “He went on to build a national reputation certainly for his ethic and professionalism, but uniquely coupled with a genuine kindness he offered without reservation, his warm smile flooding the recesses of his extraordinary memory, casting light on the thousands of actors he’d cultivate in a body of work driven by one of the greatest passions for the theatre I’ve ever encountered. I will miss him terribly.”

James Ashford is survived by the Ashford family and his large FST family.