(It's) Hairspray!

Good evening! I've been on a bit of a hiatus from the blogosphere lately because things have been extremely busy here in Burly World. This past weekend was the wonderfully amazing run of Lyric Theatre's Hairspray which I was so lucky to be a part of. I was extremely excited to finally be performing the show after months of rehearsals, and especially to be performing on the Flynn Theatre stage in downtown Btown, but now that show is over I'm really missing the cast and those same people I've seen everyday for the past four months. Like I said, though, we had an amazing run. Our audiences were fantastic and the show was awesome.

Here's a little story from opening night:

I had two major quick costume changes in the show. They were super fast so I had a dresser backstage to help me. She helped me get my pants on while changing my shoes, and this time I was especially nervous because it was opening night. Major pressure. I get the pants on and I'm just zipping up the fly as my dresser pulls out my hot pink neckerchief. I lift my head just as she pulls it from her pocket and BAM! her fist meets my eye. My dresser has successfully punched me in the eye.

I start swearing profusely (in my head of course just in case my microphone was on), and I clutched my eye.

"I'm so sorry!" my dresser pleads. Bless her heart. She didn't mean to.


"It's okay..." I say as the music for the song starts. I have to come on extremely soon.


And this is how I know I'm a true theatre kid. The first thing I thought of when I got punched was not "OH MY GOD MY EYE COULD BE SERIOUSLY INJURED!" but rather it was:


"OH MY GOD MY EYE IS WATERING! MY MAKEUP IS GOING TO RUN!"


I rushed to one of my cast mates and asked her if my makeup was running. Thankfully it wasn't, and the rest of the show went off without a hitch.

I decided that my momma name in the show was Shirley. She had a pretty well developed character even though she was only on stage for about two minutes.

Opening night concluded with an awesome opening night party with tons of food and drink and wonderful company. The weekend ended with strike which we all helped out with, and while it was long it eventually got to the point where I was dancing with a mop to "Time of My Life" from Dirty Dancing on the bare Flynn stage. Pretty successful.

Thanks to everyone who came out to see Hairspray! You made our show a tremendous success!

Peace out!

Ryan Performs in Places: Hairspray

I was in a flash mob this weekend to promote Lyric Theatre's Hairspray which opens next weekend on November 10th. I am in the show, and the cast and crew is super talented. This is going to be an awesome production especially since we've been rehearsing since August.

Here's a promotional video done by local Vermont newspaper Seven Days:



Hope you can make it to the show! See you there.

Peace out!

November 1st Is Christmastime, Okay?

Our Halloween looked a little something like this:

JESS! 

The Doctor is partyin'

Too cute!

The Doctor and Velma are on the case...

And now it's November 1st which means it's Christmastime. Obviously.

Peace out!