Meet Iván Fernández González, Class of 2018, who was our Artist in Residence during the week of April 28 - May 2. Ivan is a talented singer, dancer, actor, choreographer and creator. He's a genius at editing videos, creates his own music and has a huge TikTok fan base. He came back to ASH to work with our students across Middle and High School, leading group workshops, giving students personalized individual feedback, and sharing his knowledge as a West End musical theater professional.

 

I joined ASH in third grade, so I was at ASH for my Elementary, Middle and High school studies and graduated in 2018. I was always involved in everything artistic, performances, and videography. I was in every single musical from 5th grade - 12th grade, I was able to do some of the high school musicals whilst I was still in middle school. I also took part in some of the high school plays, helped out with tech in some of them, and my focus was definitely on the musical theater side. I also participated in A Night To Remember, Extravaganza - basically, everything that was performing, dancing, acting, singing - on stage or on video filming it, live stream, in any sort of format. It all came organically as it was what I wanted to do and how I wanted to spend my time.

 

I had intended to do the full IB program, but committed to taking an artistic career path in my junior year. So I changed paths a bit, stopped doing the full IB and during my senior year only completed the full IB courses that I required to focus on the arts. I needed more time to work on my audition material as I was flying out to London for every audition and recall for drama schools during my senior year, and I could only focus on IB courses that were helpful to me in my professional industry.

 

After ASH I went to the Guilford School of Acting, which is known in the UK as one of the top musical theater schools. I had a conservatory style training for three years, while there I studied everything from ballet to jazz to tap dancing to singing and all sorts of styles of acting and performing. I didn't write a single essay or typical “school work” for three years, as it was all practical training, and I came out of it with a university degree - it really fit what I wanted to do.

 

The COVID pandemic happened during my second year of conservatory experience, and my dad was still living here for work. During that time I spent 5 months in the Netherlands studying at my conservatory remotely, and doing all my coursework at home - like tap dancing in my kitchen! In my third and final year, the third year students were able to come back to campus first, as that is the year students get noticed by casting directors and we really have to make our first steps into the industry (which is extremely competitive in London).

 

In third year you take part in around 5 musicals throughout the school year, all which are attended to by important people to get scouted and signed into agencies. But with COVID, our performances were recorded, so the agents could watch them afterwards. On one hand we missed those live performances, but on the other it allowed scouts to watch all of the videos - even if it was of a performance they had already seen 30 times over (like West Side Story). I was very lucky as I left the conservatory early as I was the first in my year to book a job on the West End, and went straight into the West End show before I finished my studies. That was also strange, as we were one of the first theaters to open after COVID, so we performed to a third of the audience capacity and were all masked. Three months in, the theater was filled but all masked - I really experienced it during my studies, and I started my career at a time when theater was restarting again.

 

I am really enjoying my career and have been working ever since - and things keep going up. I’ve done several shows since, the most recent show is the same musical I did the first time around but this time I was cast in a leading role, and cover for the leading man as well. So last year I got to play a leading man on the West End for the first time, that was really exciting. I've toured the UK several times, I've performed in Toronto a few times which is where they test out new shows for Broadway. And I've also been really lucky to be asked to participate in original musicals and new works that are trying to be the ‘next thing’, so I've gotten the chance to originate a lot of characters in musical theater.

 

Most recently I've signed to play a role in the original musical adaptation of a major blockbuster movie, starting rehearsals in August. I am also part of this company called Pros from the Shows, which is a London based company run by Layton Williams - a UK actor who is a big name in film and shows. He runs this company with a roster of West End “stars” and we get booked for lots of workshops and master classes. Usually I get booked for London or major conventions (Musical Con), sometimes I'm leading master classes for 100 people, and sometimes it's for regional local classes with just a few kids who are excited in musical theater. More like what I was doing at ASH - it's inspiring to be able to talk to the students while the learning is happening.

 

I have stayed in touch with Anthony Cunningham - I see him several times a year since I graduated, I also keep in touch with Katrina Middleburg. They were both extremely supportive throughout my entire upbringing and they were really good at fostering and nurturing my passion for the arts - to the point where I took it seriously as a career path. They were extremely supportive and helpful during my audition process for drama schools, with all the work that I needed to put in. At the time when I was at ASH, I could see how just inspired all the other kids were as well by them and what they were doing. It is why I wanted to come back and spend a week with the kids, as I only really decided to pursue musical theater as a career path when I saw professionals come to ASH. I realized, oh, this is a career!  You can always figure out which direction you want to go - not just musical theater, there are so many ways to take those skills. My goal this week was to try to nurture that passion and excitement early on to explore it early on during their experience.

 

I was working with everyone from 7th graders to seniors this week at ASH. They were really excited, even though those students were not showing outwardly, kind of hiding it, which was nice. Even after the classes, just walking down the hallways I've had so many of the kids that I've been teaching this week just been so excited and like “Hey Ivan! How are you? I looked you up on TikTok, Insta, can i get my picture with you?”

 

I think it's extremely important for the kids to get exposed to not just their teacher, but someone who is a third party- not someone they have to perform for, but they can be themselves around. I was inspired by other graduates who came to ASH from other schools to perform. So the fact that I'm sort of living proof, of someone who has come out of ASH and is living that career path, I think that hopefully it will be really inspiring as well. I've come by to visit ASH before but just to say hi - this is the first time I've been teaching workshops - stage combat, choreography from west end shows, telling them about my experience in drama school and in the industry, all subjects including musical theater, but also the world of influencing and content creation, spotify and album music and releasing music - as I do all those things as well.

 

Obviously Anthony and Katrina: Katrina who directed the musicals and Anthony as my teacher throughout my theater classes. There are also loads of teachers in Middle School that were fostering me and nurturing me as well, like Ms. Mignon, she was my movement teacher, and she was choreographing the musicals I was in growing up, my choir teachers - some teachers who aren't here any more but all had a part in raising me.

 

A catalyst moment from my time at ASH and the moment that made me actually consider art professionally was when graduates from Central School of Speech and Drama came to ASH to perform the monologues that they had devised for their schooling, and they were really incredible pieces of theater. They were solo 20 minute performances of just someone 21 years old, something they had written, they were all incredibly moving pieces of theater. I could tell that the skill set and the level of artistry they showcased came from spending three years at a conservatory and taking it seriously as a career path. It was right there and then, in the ASH theater, that I realized that I wanted to be able to do what they were doing. Before that moment, I had only ever done the school stuff and seen people at the most elite level performing, so it was nice to see someone at that in-between stage, who had just just graduated and just started in the industry. I'm a bit further along than what they were when they came to perform, but the fact that I am from ASH is a big plus cause I can describe the whole journey. I just hope to do everything I can to encourage the arts to flourish and inspire the kids to get excited about theater!