Now There's A Stratagem for You

This is the story of my physical ailments. I know what you're thinking: why have you not posted in so long just to come back talking about your stupid and boring physical ailments? YOU MAKE NO SENSE. And the truth is: I really don't make any sense. So...there. My only excuse is that things have been very busy. A couple of weekends ago we opened our spring show at UVM: The Beaux' Stratagem.

We had an amazing run and fantastic audiences. At our closing performance there wasn't a dry eye in the cast. Seriously it was an amazing show to be a part of with an excellent cast. Anyway, that opening weekend my jaw started to kill me from the tension I held in it during the play making my awkward bad guy face. It was quite a problem and a nuisance, but it definitely didn't distract from the awesome weekend with Velvet! That's right, after two years we finally got to hang out with Velvet again! She traversed her way up to rural Vermont from the big city on Long Island and spent my "birthday" weekend with us. It as the perfect reunion and despite a couple of tiffs (what family doesn't have a few fights?) we had a great time all together again. 

As you can see, we had fun. And as you can see, another physical---I'm just going to call it an ailment---on my face. That bloody beard. I grew it for Beaux' and it definitely worked with my wonderfully cutthroat character Hounslow, but when the beard was on my face in the public eye during real life I was not having it. So Sunday evening as soon as the show was out, I went to Spinner was immediately shaved the whole thing off. It was an intense shave session.

BEFORE

AFTER!!!

It's been a great past two weeks full of dancing pirates, our sassy black friend, and beards performing a disappearing act. Congratulations to the sensational cast and crew of Beaux' for our awesome show, and I promise to blog more often. Again.

Peace out!

Show photos by Andy Duback

Looking Back, Moving Forward

The snow is slowly falling outside the large windows, the sky a milky grey. The flakes drift through a new air brought on by a new year. A fresh start. The air is chilly, but familiar like an old friend. It's reminiscent of winters long gone: of sledding down hills, skiing across open countryside in the colorful dusk, snowball fights, and warm afternoons with hot chocolate. It's also the snowfall of new adventures and memories yet to come. 2011 was quite a year, definitely busy, and it was full of amazing memories and good adventures.

It was a very stormy winter in haunted Converse and Megan as an R.A. at Quarry (aka The Q). There were lots of treks across frozen tundra and cold walks.

I received one of the most epic birthday cakes of my life shaped like the Doctor's TARDIS. Thank you Kendra!

Twelfth Night was an awesome and fun show to be a part of!

I was a part of the Catamount Singers and took an amazing improvisational movement class which changed a lot of my views of performance and opened myself up to new possibilities.

Megan and I started a brand new adventure as a couple.

UPlayers had a very successful semester this spring with an awesome bake sale , cabaret, and scavenger hunt!

I got a new job at UVM this summer and got to live and explore in Burlington during a beautiful summer. And I saw things like waterless toilets. Weird.

Megan and I took a trip to Cape Cod to see Ashley after her epic semester in Ireland.

The Doctor, his Roman Goddess, and the Gypsy had an epic and classy Halloween weekend.

I had ovaries.

HAIRSPRAY! happened after all that hard work and a debilitating bout  of bronchitis...

I also flexed a technical muscle in designing the lights for Toys this year. AND I was a teacher's assistant this semester, something that I loved doing and it confirmed my drive to be a theatre teacher. This summer I also started a "Ryan Performs in Places" segment on my blog which has been a lot of fun and a great outlet. I'm hoping to expand on it this year and possibly make a new blog for performances and writing. Hope to see you there!

I got my Dad a hoodie-footie for Christmas. Winning.

Iris had a good Christmas.

Finally, this Christmas and New Years was a lot of fun and full of Christmas cookies, family, and friends. The New Year concluded for Megan and I in Barre/Montpelier Vermont with one of our good friends Rosie. We went to the First Night dance party and then saw them release these beautiful paper, fire-lit lanterns into the night sky.

Happy New Year and a toast to new adventures.

Peace out!

Halloween Playlist

This year I am totally into the Halloween season. This October seems so incredibly creepy especially with the rainstorms and constant black clouds we've had in the sky. I've been smelling pumpkin spice and drinking hot apple cider for the past month, and I can't wait to unveil my Halloween costume this weekend. I've made this awesome Halloween playlist this year to get me even more into the mood. Enjoy:

"Helter Skelter" from Across the Universe
"Spoooky Mormon Hell Dream" from The Book of Mormon
"Bloody Mary" by Lady Gaga
"Cannibal" by Ke$ha
"The Woman's Dead" from Curtains the Musical
"Slipping" from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
"Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga
"Monster" by Lady Gaga
The whole soundtrack from Rocky Horror Picture Show
"Thriller/Heads Will Roll" from Glee
"Battlefield" from Cirque du Soleil's Ka
"Be Prepared" from The Lion King
"Prologue (Little Shop of Horrors)" from Little Shop of Horrors
"Run Like, Um...Hell?" from Lost
"Monsters Are Such Interesting People" from Lost
"El Tango de Roxanne" from Moulin Rouge
"I'm Alive" from Next to Normal
The whole soundtrack from The Phantom of the Opera
"Rude Boy" by Rihanna
"The Dark I Know Well" from Spring Awakening
The whole soundtrack from Sweeney Todd
"E.T." by Katy Perry
"Thriller" by Michael Jackson
The whole soundtrack from Wicked
"Disturbia" by Rihanna

Hope you have a rocking start to your Halloween. Be spooky, be kooky, and have fun!

Peace out!

My Everything Hurts

...and within a period of two days, I was packed up and moved out of my wonderful single in UHeights to the tiny double in Wills, but it's not all that bad. Somehow I found a way to take the lofted bed and fit Megan's loveseat under it. It created quite the batcave effect, which has been a pretty awesome addition to the room so far. I'm just waiting this week out now until Joe arrives on Sunday and school starts.

I'm so completely ready for school to start. Everything is in order, schedules have been made, books have been bought (In 14 different orders on Amazon as well as one from UVM.), and supplies have been organized. Megan and I just talked about how exciting it's going to be to pack up our backpacks Sunday night before  the first day of school. I could not be more pumped and ready to go. I'm also super excited about being a TA and doing Hairspray rehearsals.

These all came today.

I actually had quite the stressful day right before getting completely moved out and going home for the weekend. It began when I went to the UVM Residential Life office, like I was told to do, and waited for ten minutes at the front desk until someone came out into the lobby to ask me if anyone had been helping me. Since no one was, the woman went back in and got me the key to my room. Once I was packed up, I moved a bunch (basically everything I owned) to Wills. When I went to lock the door, however, the key wouldn't turn in the lock. After swearing profusely, I ran to the front desk of my new dorm where the office manager was just about to take off for the day. She got me the right key all the while wondering why ResLife gave me the wrong one and where they got it. Needless to say that key worked.

Then, when I tried to turn my computer (Bertha) on to see if there was wireless in my new dorm, the screen fizzled out and went dark. I screamed and raced to the Computer Depot in the Davis Center with my baby clutched in my arms. There they hooked her up to another computer and determined that the problem was probably physical, so I had to send it in to the company. After talking with a thickly accented Indian customer service representative for an hour, we determined that there was definitely something wrong but my warranty had run out. It was cheaper to buy another computer.

Moment of silence for Bertha...........


Now enter Marcus, my new computer, who is very sleek and runs with Windows 7. I'm hoping Marcus will serve me well. This is my first blog post with him, and it's working quite well. Thank you, Costco! (Yes, we got my new computer at Costco.)


This weekend I also got the chance to go see Chase's directorial genius in Hairspray at the Haskell Opera House. I really missed that place from last summer, and I especially missed Lissy (who was amazing in the show), Chase (who needs a Broadway stage, stat), and Kat (who continues to astound me with her stage managing abilities). It was great to see everyone and take in an awesome show.

It was weird to watch the show and then come back to Burlington to start rehearsing it. But rehearse we did. Matt and I have been carpooling to rehearsals and totally rocking them. Hope you can all make it to the show! There will be links up soon over in the right sidebar. ------------------->


In the end: my back, my neck, my arms, my abs, and my legs are killing me. The dances are hard and I was totally drenched in sweat on Sunday but it's totally worth it. I missed working this hard for theatre so much. I felt so broken from lack of theatre (yet again) after having it the whole time last summer, and having this opportunity to perform on the big stage at the Flynn is absolutely amazing. For people like me, and Matt, and Chase, and Lissy, and Kat, anything is worth it for theatre.


And sweat is worth it.


Here are some more pictures from Megan and my drive yesterday to the Champlain Islands. It was a lot of fun and we found some Vermont nut free chocolates!

Another highlight from this weekend:





Peace out!

Ryan Performs in Places: Blackbird

Hey ya'll! I'm starting a new series called Ryan Performs in Places. I'm basically going to go to places and perform. It could be singing, or dancing, or acting, or whatever I feel like and it could be anywhere...I'm like that kid who dances in Apple stores except not really. I will post my favorites on Youtube. Anyway, for my first performance, I sang The Beatles' "Blackbird" under the tree outside University Heights. Give me a little bit of credit, okay this is my first time posting a video like this. I was a tid bit nervous...Enjoy!

Peace out!

Do I Look Drunk? and Other Silly Stories

Hello hello! It's been quite awhile since I last posted, but there's been so much going on and so much left to do before the end of the semester. This whole week has been a blur on constant activity, running around, and not getting things done. Unfortunately, I'm sick on top of all that and with Stop Kiss auditions at UVM and Hairspray auditions with Lyric Theatre at the Flynn coming up in the next week (yes, I'm auditioning for two plays at once!), things are a little tense. I just wanted to give you an update on everything that's been going on this past week. Ready...set...go!

For all of you Vermonters out there, last Tuesday was Free Cone Day at Ben and Jerry's. This of course being the best holiday of the Spring, I was prepared for this. Ben and Jerry's is truly the only ice cream I really love, unfortunately it's terribly expensive so if I can get it for free, you bet I'm going to exploit that frozen sugary gold mine. Earlier in the day, the RTT gang headed to the Davis Center Ben and Jerry's for free cones after lunch (which we ate in line), then when Megan got out of work she came up to UVM and we got more cones.

The line was huge.

Our costume shop supervisor at RTT Alan (He's awesome. Just sayin'.) suggested we just take the truck.

Daffodils! Spring! Yay!

Then we headed downtown to raid the main Ben and Jerry's store! The line went all the way down the block to the Rite Aid. It was pretty intense.

Yay! More cones! Three total for the day, not a bad turn out for Free Cone Day.

Later that week was the opening of RTT's Spring Festival of Plays, or the senior's final projects, to put it frankly. I ran the light board (Yeah, that's right. I got technical. It was pretty crazy and I was insanely nervous. It was a great experience and it's awesome to have that on my resume, but it only confirmed that tech is not my thing. I didn't do so well on the taking orders and procedure bit. The show was awesome though.) for two performances, ushering for another, and working in the box office for the rest. It was a busy weekend, to say the least.

On Saturday I ran the light board for the matinee performance and ushered that night, so I went to grab dinner with Alice (Have I introduced Alice to the blog yet? One of my BFFs at RTT. SO MANY ACRONYMS!!!) who was also ushering. While we were waiting for the bus to go back to the theatre, this random drunk guy runs up to us.

"Okay, you three (there were three of us at the bus stop) as a collective whole, do I look or sound drunk!?"

Right from the get go this is not going to turn out well because the guy is quite obviously drunk.

"'Cuz I just got kicked out of Springfest (concert thing at UVM) because they thought I was pushin' people. I'm just a tall guy and when you stand like this (he proceeded to make some sort of weird pose with his hands behind his head and his crotch thrusted out) they think you're pushin' people when all you're tryin' to do is brace yourself!"

He then told us his ingenious plan to sneak back into Springfest even though the police specifically told him they were going to arrest him if he tried to come back. He was going to disguise himself. Of course I couldn't understand him a lot of the time because he was slurring his words. Fun times at UVM...

Needless to say, the one acts were fantastic and the Vermont Pub and Brewery party which Megan came to was a lot of fun. Even though I slowly got sick during that weekend, I managed to survive as did everyone involved. This cold that seeped into my throat, chest, voice, and sinuses was slowly wreaking havoc on my strength for the Catamount Singers concert which was approaching on Monday. That whole day I spent on vocal rest except for doing a skit in Theatre History and rehearsal for that night. It was brutal, but it did wonders to keep up my vocal agility for the concert. However, within the last hour before the concert was a stressful load of stress. I ran downtown to run some errands (including buying a dozen eggs for my lighting project on "Born This Way" which was amazing by the way), ate dinner, had a group meeting, realized that the black shirt I needed for the concert was left at The Q, ran to my dorm to grab all my other clothes, ran to The Q to get ready, and then Megan drove me to the concert. I was a hot mess that evening, but the concert went off without a hitch! It was a beautiful culmination to all the work we had been putting in all semester. Congrats Cat Singers!

Flashforward to Wednesday when the UPlayers threw their awesome 4/20 Bake Sale. It was projected to be successful because all those stoners need their munchies right? Some of our awesome slogans were: 

"YOU GOT THE MUNCHIES WE GOT THE CURE!"

"BAKED GOODS FOR THE BAKED! (or not baked...whatever you prefer...)"

and my personal favorite:

"GET YOUR BAKE ON!"

It was a wildly successful bake sale. We even raffled off a giant cupcake filled with pudding and a strawberry cake even though they both went to our costuming professor...

Sam trying to stuff our crappy Student Government providing tent into its bag. Thanks for the crappy tent SGA!

As you can see, it's been a pretty busy week here in Burly World. Hopefully this cold will pass me by soon as I go home for Easter weekend. Everyone have a lovely Easter!

Peace out!