Collegiate Theatrics: CCM's RYAN GARRETT

One of the best parts of covering and reviewing theater in one region for almost 30 years is seeing new talent emerge from among the area's younger actors. Take, for example, Ryan Garrett - a 2012 First Night Most Promising Actor and a graduate of Williamson County's Centennial High School, he now studies at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, a program that has encouraged him to think outside the box and which has challenged him with ever-more intense roles onstage and in the classroom.

Since beginning his studies at CCM, Garrett has performed as Howie in Speech & Debate, Nico in Pentecost, Chris Boxer/Steve/Waiter in The Heidi Chronicles, Apache in 17th Annual Snipes Arkansas Harvest Festival (Transmigration Festival 2014), Noah in Neutral and Nonpartisan (Transmigration Festival 2015) and next month you can catch him as the salesman in Ah, Wilderness! from February 11-14 in Patricia Corbett Theatre at CCM.

This past summer, the multi-talented Garrett made his New York debut in #theatrecompany's Crowd Fund Project, called The Gospel of Fat Kathy, an original play devised by a company of CCM students and alumni, including AC Horton, Katie Langham, Owen Alderson, Michaela Tropeano and JP Maddox. While in NYC for the summer, he interned with The Daryl Roth Theatre's Fuerza Bruta: Wayra in Union Square.

His favorite hometown roles include Brett in Circle Players' 13 The Musical and Moritz in Street Theatre Company's Spring Awakening.

Today, Ryan Garrett steps back into the hometown spotlight as the subject of today's Collegiate Theatrics...

How's your college theater career going? My college theater career is going very well! Thus far it's gone beyond my expectations for what I'd experience. The training has been INSANE yet mind-blowing, the productions have been life-changing and the connections made have been so vast, impressive and beautiful that I couldn't imagine going anywhere else.

What's been your favorite part of studying at CCM? my favorite part about studying at CCM has to be the training. They not only train you through many different acting/movement/vocal techniques each year, but they also train you within the business side of being an artist. I feel that some programs within the states definitely lacks with this department, where CCM has been incredible with fully preparing you to be a full-time actor. The training is so solid that I was able to use it immediately last summer with some colleagues to create our own theatre company and perform our own devised theatre piece on 44th in Midtown Manhattan for a week. There's nothing like this training. They also teach you to be an ensemble and the beauty of being in one. It takes away the competition aspect of acting and performing and allows you to realize power of creating art through multiple artists with different strengths and views.

Has your career path deviated or have your plans changed since going to CCM? My plans for the future were pretty vague before college. I knew I wanted to act and create theatre of some kind. But that was about it! Once I got here, I learned that the future and gaining success in the future is less about making it big but more of working in theatre in any way you can. My plans have now developed into creating my own production company and making shorts to be released on the internet, to creating my own plays, to just being in a series and/or film. So all and all I guess my plans hadn't changed much! But my definition of success in the future has changed. Who knows what the future holds.

What's been your most memorable theater moment so far? I was thankfully able to perform in a studio production of a funny play called, Speech & Debate by Stephen Karam in which I was a part of a five-person cast. This is very rare in BFA programs but the whole experience was extremely rewarding. We learned how to connect through the ensemble and feed each other on-stage and in rehearsal. It was like kids on a playground, trying new things, and just enjoying the intimate relationships and scenes.

What advice would you offer a high school student who's considering a theater career? If I could give any advice to high school students considering to "make the plunge," it would have to be something they've told us since freshman year. And that's go before you're ready. You'll never know what you can achieve if you hesitate. So if you want it, do it! Go after it. Create. For yourself, for the audience, for artists everywhere. And have fun. If you stop doing that, why are you doing it at all?

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