BWW Interviews: Bryce Ryness

Each June, the Broadway season comes to a close, the industry celebrates its finest at the growing list of award ceremonies, and the industry airs out a collective sigh of relief. (Some) enjoy summer Fridays and the rest of us regain an appreciation for free time at night. 

Yet unfailingly each year during this downtime, a few shows come along in the summer months that are so exciting, they make us feel like we're back in full-season swing.  See Rock City & Other Destinations, a production of the Transport Group, is on this short list for me.

Winner of the 2008 Richard Rodgers Award and the 2007 Jerry Bock Award, See Rock City & Other Destinations is a contemporary pop-rock musical road trip that ventures to tourist destinations across America, mapping out stories of sightseers in search of fellow travelers: a wanderer believes his destiny is written on rooftops along the North Carolina interstate; a young man yearns to connect with intelligent life in Roswell, New Mexico; a woman at the Alamo steps out of the shadow of her past to take a chance on love; estranged sisters cruise to Glacier Bay to scatter their father's ashes; high school boys face unexpected fears in a Coney Island spook house; and a terrified bride-to-be ponders taking the leap...over Niagara Falls. See Rock City & Other Destinations creates a vivid travelogue of moving characters and connections missed and made along the way.

Not only "event theater" in its design, equally exciting about See Rock City is seeing Bryce Ryness back on the New York stage, with his turn as Hair's 'Woof' complete and his departure for LA to star alongside Brooke Shields and Raul Esparza in Leap of Faith imminent.  BroadwayWorld recently spoke with Ryness about how he went from working in corporate real estate to becoming everyone's favorite Mick Jagger-loving hippie, and why he couldn't pass up the opporunity to take on See Rock City.

This New York premiere production, featuring music by Brad Alexander, book and lyrics by Adam Mathias, direction by Artistic Director Jack Cummings III, opens tomorrow, July 17, at The Duke on 42nd Street, and runs through August 8.

To start, tell me about See Rock City. It's an interesting concept and I'd love to hear your explanation, having now lived in it for severAl Weeks.

Sure. The closest comparison would be something like Songs for a New World or like Closer Than Ever, to go way back in the musical theater vault. It's a series of vignettes, like twenty minute scenes - almost like little tiny one-acts - that create a series of alternating sequences centered on the storyline of the main character, Evan. So it's like a three-ring circus, wherein something happens on the main stage and then it cuts back to Evan, and then back to the twenty-minute scene on stage, and then back to Evan and so on. What's great about this structure is that you get to really learn about the characters in a cyclical way, as opposed to in the traditional song cycle: one character, one song - done, next character, next song - done. You get a little arc with each scene and that's really wonderful. It's a wonderful piece. It's really well thought out and the script is awesome. The songs have such a great accessibility and complexity. I have totally fallen in love with this story and I think everyone else will too.

How did you get involved with the show? Were you a part of the workshop in 2009 or did this come into your life more recently?

It's something that came into my life more recently. I finished, or was in the process of finishing up, Hair and getting set to do Leap of Faith out in California. That project was pushed back and so there was all of a sudden this six week gap in my schedule. Jack Cummings called me and told be about this project that fit nicely into this slot. So we met and talked about it and then I read the script and heard the songs and just said "I have to do this. I have to do this piece, it's so good." Jack and I had worked together previously on Crossing Brooklyn for the Transport Group. The guy who preceded me in the workshop in 2009 he had another gig so he was unavailable, which was fortuitous for me because I'm in hog heaven right now, with how great the actors are and how great the material is.

Tell me about the different characters that you play and how they fit into the larger puzzle of the show.

I think the underlying theme of the piece from my perspective - and usually you get a different perspective from each different actor - is that all of these characters have some sort of obstacle in their life that's holding them back, and confronting that obstacle requires a certain amount of courage. Each character is in search of something and in going to these national monuments, these majestic places, I think that they're each trying to tap into some sort of existential understanding that will pull them out of their particular situation. My first character is Jess, and he is a road warrior. He's just going down the road a wandering soul, kind of like the Emile Hirsch character in Into the Wild. He experiences something pretty tragic, which sends him on this pilgrimage with a wanderlust. I think he's trying to see a purpose in life by going to all these fantastical places and traveling around, seeing all that there is to see in the world. My second character is named Cutter, and he is an Upper East Side guy, prep school kid, 14 years old, full of vim and vigor and a typical child of privilege. He and his friend Rick are heading out to Coney Island for the day - they've skipped school and they're playing hooky - and stumble upon a whole world of emotions and evolving relationships involved in the fusion that adolescence and hormones bring.

How was the double casting determined? I know that each of you play two roles. Is there a method to why you have your two particular roles? They seem so dissimilar.

You know, I don't know specifically. I think that Brad Alexander, Adam Matthias and Jack Cummings tracked out the show in a way that makes the most sense in terms of physicality. As far as my character pairing, Jess and Cutter, I think that track was intended for the actor to have some sort of physical intensity and also some sort of spiritual intensity to him. Most all of that work was completed before I got on board and I knew that I was being tapped for this role-pairing specifically.

Tell be a little bit about the experience working with the Transport Group? They are a unique company and this is your second go-round with them. How has it been being back?

Sure. Of all the theater companies that I've worked with in my vast career- [laughs] please put that in ‘vast career...' What I love about the Transport Group is Jack's focus on the subtleties and the nuance of a particular piece of text, an actor's performance, a song, a melody. I think that he is drawn to the specifics of any particular interaction and works on a nano-particle level of detail. He sees so much detail, and as such, it's very liberating to work with him. There's not a lot of "louder, faster, funnier!" I think Jack is drawn to actors and to material that is seemingly nothing more than pedestrian action on the surface, but when you actually sit and observe it, is really deep and really emotional and really layered and has such a passion behind it. In any interaction there is what's happening on the surface and there is what's happening in the background, and then there is what's happening underneath the surface, behind your eye - with all of the chaotic, raging emotions and raging thoughts, scattered pictures going through your head. All of that happens within a very simple environment and I think Jack does a good job of bringing that to the stage. And as the head of the Transport Group, that becomes their heart. They do plays that deal with the American experience. And I think that Jack's particular take on the American experience is celebrating the nuance created through the simplicity.

I could tell even from your recent presentation that the emphasis was on generating rich performances from you guys. Seems almost like working with Jack is actor's dream from what you've just described. It sounds as if going to rehearsal every day is almost like going to a glorified acting class.

What I think is wonderful about Jack and why I think that the Transport Group should definitely have a prominent place within New York theater is that, of all the directors out there these days, he's kind of the only one that I've seen that will choose the relationship between two human beings on stage over what's going on with the lighting or the set design. If at any point any of the technical elements or razzmatazz overtake what's happening on stage, he will always bring the relationship to the forefront. And from an actor's perspective, you're right, it is a dream. It is a wonderful, safe, and a nurturing environment that I think pays off. I think it's unique in New York right now.

I understand there is some very interesting and unique staging in this show that's a little bit different from what New York theater-goers see typically. Without giving too much away, can you talk about what we can expect in this area?

Sure! I wouldn't say that the show is interactive because we're not warming up the audience or shaking hands with the guy in the third row, for example. Jack's last production was The Boys in the Band and that was done in an arched stage that got turned into a loft. And the audience was seated amongst the actors and the action and activity would take place in what would be considered the aisle - like it would happen all around you. It wasn't theater in the round per se, it was theater all around you. That's the same production idea we're utilizing for this show: action and activity and staging and traffic patterns are going to happen all around you. So there isn't just one physical viewpoint and not all of the seats are pointed in the same direction, as in a traditional theater. There's going to be a lot of turning and head-swiveling, and the audience is going to be enveloped in the action.

Since it's freshest on people's minds, most know you best from Hair, of course. Hair, in its own way, was also a "show of the people" as you describe here. What did that experience mean to you? I know that it meant a lot to a lot of people.

Wow. I could share story after story with you of people who have told me "Oh, it did this for me, it did that for me." And for me, that's the prize. That's the whole reason that I do theater - is to create little two-and-a-half hour windows where I'm able to share something with you that effects you on a spiritual level. For me specifically, Hair allowed me to discover why I loved doing theater. You can say in the broadest strokes "I love theater!" And I think that that is a little uninformed, or at least unspecific. For example, I definitely do not love the politicking and the networking and all of the things that are under the umbrella of theater. Hair allowed me to have a full experience with what theater can offer. We had everything from television appearances, to signings at Barnes and Noble, to meeting famous people, to performing for foreign dignitaries, to performing for domestic dignitaries, to performing at the Tony Awards, to winning the Tony Award... all of these things that are under the mantle of theater. What was great about that experience, and something that I will cherish forever, was how it clearly defined what exactly what I love about the broad topic of theater, and helped me be really specific about that.

Do you have a favorite role to date?

Floyd Collins in Los Angeles in 2005. I had never played a role that resonated more humbly and fearfully within my soul as that role did.

Would you say that that role has had the most significant impact on your career, if for no other reason than because it did hit you so personally? Or is there another role that has played that part?

Yes. Flloyd Collins was the role that opened my eyes to how powerful performing is to me. Up until that point, I really wasn't much of a theater actor. I was a professional singer who did theater because it paid the bills.

I think you're the only person in life to have ever said "I did theater to pay the bills."

[Laughs] I should say, "I did theater because I'm not a very good waiter." I actually I got a business degree from USC so I dabbled a bit in the corporate world during college. I was working for a real estate company that was dealing specifically with new development. I was a research analyst. But I wasn't alive when I was in the corporate world...[laughs] so I choose not to go back to that dark place.

Wow. So how and when did you make the transition into being a performer?

Well in college I was in an a capella group called the USC SoCal VoCals and almost immediately after I got out of college I got a job as a professional singer with a professional a capella group called Groove 66 that performed at Disney's California Adventure. I did that for two and a half years, intermixed with singing gigs for Disney on Ice, Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus. So I was making my living just singing. That was all I did. I did some television but that was my bread and butter. Groove 66 ended in '04 and thereafter I started getting involved with Los Angeles theater. I got married in 2005 and very soon thereafter I booked the Rent tour. I did Roger on the Rent tour in 2006. And then right after I got off the tour, I came back to Los Angeles, only to quickly decide that to do theater we needed to be in New York. So we packed up the the U-Haul- no, I guess it was a Penske truck - and came out here. So it was a bit of a dream!

I know that, in the free time you don't have much of anymore, you also dabble in songwriting. Can you talk a little about this side of your life? Are there things coming up on that horizon that you are excited for?

Realistically, it's more of a hobby. Something that I do to stay creative and productive. The music industry is in such a strange place right now, and my business background tells me that now is not the best time to get involved in it. I love writing songs. Well, more specifically, I love being creative and I love music, and those two passions put together basically turned me into the songwriter. My band has two albums out: we have a live album and a studio album called 'A Fire in the Night,' which is available on iTunes. There's a lot of very talented people who, when they're in shows, are doing the exact same thing eight days a week. And at a certain point, you've kind of discovered all there is to discover about that particular character, and so then it becomes about maintenance. You maintain the character, maintain the show, and maintain your creative and artistic integrity for that role. But there is a limit to how much you can explore in an eight show week format, especially with commercial theater. So what does the creative side do with all this unrealized potential? A lot of us out there have other outlets. Mine is songwriting.

So after See Rock City is up you then go directly into Leap of Faith. Is there anything else that's planned for you that we should know about?

It's all focused on Leap of Faith after this. My family is out in the LA area, so we're going to go out, have a great time doing Leap of Faith, reconnect with all of the relatives out there and kind of see what happens. In the same way that we loaded up a Penske truck and came to New York in 2006, we're kind of like, "all right God, what do you got for us?" The future is wide open and we don't have any sort of "oh, well once that's finished, we're going to go here and then we're going to go here and then we're going to go to the left." There's no master plan and that's something that is both really scary but really exciting.

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Ryness is joined in See Rock City by Stanley Bahorek (Broadway's Big River, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee); Donna Lynne Champlin (Broadway's Billy Elliot, Sweeney Todd, OBIE Award winner for TG's The Dark at the Top of the Stairs); Jonathan Hammond (Broadway's Ragtime, OBIE Award winner and Drama League Award nominee for TG's The Boys in the Band); Ryan Hilliard (Off-Broadway's Grey Gardens, Godspell); Bryce Ryness (Drama Desk Award nominee for Broadway's HAIR, TG's Crossing Brooklyn); and Sally Wilfert (Make Me a Song, Broadway's Assassins).

For tickets and more information, visit http://www.transportgroup.org.

Click here for a video preview of See Rock City in presentation on BroadwayWorld!