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EDEN — Exploring New York, attending plays and working as a casting assistant with a production company cemented the plans Ashley Meeks, 20, has had since high school: to live and work as a performer in New York.

“I feel like I could definitely live there,” said Meeks, a 2009 Morehead High School graduate and an Elon University junior majoring in theater.

She recently returned from a two-month stay in New York , sponsored by Elon’s Communications Department. Meeks and 29 other Elon students lived in dorms at the New School in Manhattan.

At age 4, Meeks started dancing, which “helped expose me to the arts and performing in front of people.”

She began singing at Holmes Middle School, eventually joining the Morehead High School Ensemble.

But it was in a drama class she took as a freshman that “I really started to fall in love with theater,” Meeks said. “I fell very fast.”

Meeks also took private voice lessons in high school and did personal research on show business. She went lots of local shows, and she and her mother took weekend trips to see shows in New York City.

It was only natural for Meeks to perform at school and in other productions.

She landed roles in the Rockingham County Theatre Guild productions and with the Gallery Players in Burlington and Theatre Alliance of Winston-Salem.

In New York, the students took classes taught by Elon professors on Mondays. The rest of the week, they interned with the Pearl Theatre Company, an off-Broadway theater company.

Meeks worked with casting supervisors, directors and artistic directors at the casting sessions. They were looking for performers for two plays, “Richard II” and “The Philanderer.”

“We would get thousands of resumes, and we would go through those to decide who would come to the initial audition,” Meeks said, estimating more than 100 actors showed up for the auditions.

She participated in two auditions and a call back for each show.

“Richard II” will be performed in December; Meeks hopes to return for the show.

“I am real excited,” Meeks said. “It will be nice to see everybody who got the parts actually do it.”

“The Philanderer” will be in January and February.

When not working or in class, Meeks went to see shows — Broadway, off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway — averaging four or five a week.

Her favorite Broadway show was “War Horse,” but she particularly enjoyed “Sleep No More,” described as an “experience” in a renovated hotel.

On entering, the audience walks around to start viewing the show.

“Actually, you follow a character through several scenes and then choose another character to follow, so eventually you see most of the characters and get the gist of the performance,” she said.

She got to see a lot of the city, going to different areas and museums.

“It was a lot of fun,” she said. “I got to see what it would be like to actually live in the city. That is definitely helpful for after graduation.”

Meeks also learned what it’s like to have a job every day in the city and “commuting on the subway rather than taking my car everywhere like we do around here.”

Most people in New York don’t own vehicles.

“I really didn’t miss having a car,” Meeks said. “I liked walking a lot. It’s really nice to have everything within walking distance because everything is so close together.”

Eating in the city was another experience.

“I was expecting to pay a lot more for food than I did,” she said. “Of course, there were some places we went that were a little expensive.”

She also enjoyed eating at “surprisingly clean” sidewalk stands.

After graduating, Meeks plans to return to New York to follow her dream.

People at the theater where she interned said she could get a job with them if one is available.

“As far as acting, I will have to go to a lot of auditions,” Meeks said. “It will take me a while. It will be hard for me to get acting jobs because there are a lot of people and not a lot of parts for everybody.”

Only a fraction of the people who want to be actors in New York actually make a living doing it.

“I hope I will be able to support myself with performing,” she said. “I would love to get into a tour of a show. I want to perform.”

Reidsville native Ann Fish has lived in Eden since 1979. Contact her at annsomersfish@yahoo.com