Meet Ashe
Hi, I’m Ashe Lynne- actress, singer, artist, lifelong lover of live performance, and the voice behind Places Please!
For more than fifteen years, I’ve had the privilege of experiencing performance from just about every angle I could find: onstage, backstage, on film sets, at festivals, inside character costumes, and even occasionally with a mermaid tail.
My performing background stretches across theatre, film, character entertainment, immersive performance, Renaissance faires and festivals. I’ve worked professionally as an actress and singer, performed as a character entertainer at Walt Disney World, trained in stage and real-world combat, and eventually founded my own entertainment company, Enchanted Tide Entertainment.
In other words, I really love this stuff.
I love the moment before the house lights go down. I love watching an actor make a choice I never would have expected. I love an incredible costume, a clever piece of staging, a perfectly timed joke, and those rare moments when an entire audience seems to collectively forget that they're watching a performance at all.
I also love talking about why those things work.
That’s ultimately where Places Please! came from.
Why Places Please!?
When we talk about performance criticism, the conversation tends to begin and end with traditional theatre.
But performance happens everywhere.
It happens beneath the lights of a proscenium stage and in the middle of a muddy Renaissance faire lane. It happens beneath circus tents, across festival grounds, inside convention halls, in intimate black-box theatres, on makeshift stages, and sometimes directly beside an audience that suddenly realizes it has become part of the show.
Places Please! exists to celebrate- and thoughtfully examine- all of it.
Here you'll find reviews of plays and musicals alongside Renaissance faires, festivals, conventions, immersive entertainment, variety acts, and other forms of live performance that deserve the same thoughtful conversation we give traditional theatre.
If someone has stepped in front of an audience with a story to tell, an experience to create, or something wonderfully strange to share, there’s probably a place for them here.
Places, please.
How I Review
Art is subjective.
That seems obvious, but it's worth saying.
A review on Places Please! isn't a declaration of whether a piece of art is objectively “good” or “bad.” It's one person's informed response to experiencing it.
That's also why you won't find stars, scores, or numerical ratings here.
Performance isn't a competition, and wildly different artists shouldn't have to occupy the same imaginary scale. A community theatre production, a touring musical, a Renaissance faire stunt show, and a one-person street performance may have completely different resources, audiences, intentions, and definitions of success.
Instead, I try to meet a performance where it is.
What was it trying to accomplish?
What worked?
What didn't?
What choices stood out?
How did the audience respond?
And, perhaps most importantly, what did the experience leave behind when it was over?
My background as a performer inevitably shapes the way I watch a show. I notice acting choices, timing, direction, design, storytelling, audience interaction, technical execution, and the thousand little decisions that eventually become a finished performance.
But I also know how much work happens before an audience ever sees any of it.
That knowledge doesn't mean withholding criticism.
It means making the criticism worth something.
