Temple alum makes her Broadway debut in ‘Shucked’, a musical about corn
“It was like being on top of the Empire State Building,” said Ashley D. Kelley of her April 4 debut. She previously appeared on Netflix’s “Instatiable” and shows like “Luke Cage” and “Ghosts.”
Singer and actress Ashley D. Kelley visited Temple University because her older brother had it on his college list. She tagged along for the trip and remembered “feeling this electric energy on campus,” she said to The Inquirer. “I thought, maybe I should look into this school.”
Kelley, who hails from Long Island, got interested in Temple’s theater program and said it was the only school she applied to.
These days Kelley is feeling a different type of electricity as one of the stars of the new Broadway musical Shucked. The production, set in Cobb County, is about a community that lives happily, growing corn, until one day when the crops begin to fail. It’s a rare, original musical — songs by country hitmakers Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally — not a revival or based on a Disney cartoon or old movie.
Even rarer? It’s about corn — which may not have been mentioned in a musical since it was “as high as an elephant’s eye” in Oklahoma.
“I heard about the show when it was still being developed,” Kelley said, “and I was a little confused at first because I couldn’t imagine what it could be about, and no one could tell me.”
She decided to audition and said the book by Robert Horn (of TV’s Designing Women and Broadway’s Tootsie) was truly incredible. “I didn’t realize how much I would fall in love with it.”
With a punny ad campaign, great early buzz, and red carpet flashbulbs popping like, uh, corn, Shucked opened April 4. Kelley’s opening night — her Broadway debut in the role of Storyteller 1 — was incredible.
“It was like I got shot out of a cannon,” she said. “There has been so much excitement about the show and then on opening night so many amazing people came. Susan Sarandon was in the audience, Kacey Musgraves, and a slew of other celebrities. It was like being on top of the Empire State Building and screaming out into the universe. It was just exhilarating.”
As is being a newcomer to the Broadway community. “Community is a really great word for it,” Kelley said, “because everyone knows everyone, everyone supports everyone.”
Before Broadway beckoned, the Temple alum appeared as the angel Michael in the Bucks County Playhouse Production of David Javerbaum’s comedy, An Act of God. She was a regular in the Netflix series Insatiable and did TV guest spots on Luke Cage, Bull, Chicago P.D., and Ghosts.
Kelley also worked with the Philadelphia Young Playwrights, performing in shows written by students. “It’s such a great program,” she said. “There’s a committee of professional actors and teachers who read the plays and decide on which ones they’re going to put on. Then they hire professional actors to come in and perform the work of the students.”
As for her favorite memories from her student years in Philadelphia, Kelley chose Ishkabibble’s and Max’s as her favorite cheesesteaks. Her top places to hang out were the Art Museum, where she spent many Saturday afternoons, and the Constitution Center, where she worked for a summer, discussing the nation’s founding.
“I was a storyteller there,” she said, “and now I’m playing a storyteller in Shucked on Broadway. I’ve come full circle.”