Q: What has been your favorite performance to date?
A: I think in terms of learning about myself, Audrey "Little Shop Of Horrors" was a really big step for me, but I also loved playing Gertrude in "Seussical." That was my first lead and it was really cool because it was my first performance with Boston Children’s Theater. I didn’t know anybody or know what the theater was. I got the lead and I was like “oh my god everybody’s going to hate me!” Which was kind of true, but then everybody started to like me after they realized I wasn’t a bitch. Definitely those two, I learned so much.
Q: Have you ever had any theater disasters?
A: I did this little…it started out as this acting workshop and they said they were going to make a show out of it, so we ended up doing kind of The Good Doctor by Neil Simon, but we really didn’t do it. There were 20-ish people in the class and she split up the parts between the people and she gave me a monologue but it wasn’t really an actual part. It was really weird, and it was in The Paris Center for the Arts, and it used to be a church... it was just very odd. I was also in High School Musical once so…it’s a disaster within itself.
A: Well I had this epiphany watching "New Girl" last season. Nick and Jess had this beautiful kiss and it was so gorgeous that it inspired my entire life, and I wrote this whole post about how I feel most at home when I’m portraying another person and I wanted to inspire people like that. That kiss inspired me to want to be better. When I did Audrey, it wasn’t a struggle but I wanted to be more professional than I was previously, and I learned that it’s not always about being professional. It’s about making connections with people, making friends, knowing the people you’re working with. It also showed that you don’t have to have the most perfect group of people to have a perfect experience. Also through all the theater things- I always learn something about myself through each character, just because you have to find something within yourself about the character to be the character. Audrey I felt more confident after it was over, because I wasn’t really sure I could do the part and do justice with it and I’m really proud of the work I did with her.
As a theater major at the University of New Hampshire and a community actress in the Boston area, we sat down with Bri to find out what she's learned throught her years of experience that makes her successful, and what advice she has to pass on to you.
bri ryder
Junior studying Theater Performance at UNH.
Originally from Westford, MA
Current roles: Diana in "Next To Normal, Vivienne in "Legally Blonde."
Also taking part in The PErforming Arts Project's Company Three week 2014 summer intensive program.
Q: What made you choose to pursue theater as a career and to study it in college?
A: Well, I didn’t start out wanting to do theater. I started when I was little, I wanted to just do music and I wanted to be Lee Ann Rhymes. The only way to do anything musical in my town was to do musical theater so I started auditioning for those. In 7th grade I did a summer program with the director of the high school’s theater department and it changed my life. I learned about monologues and things like that and thought, “wow, I actually want to do this for the rest of my life,” which is funny to choose in 7th grade. Then in high school I acted and got involved with Boston Children’s Theater- they were really professional, teaching us how to be theater artists. The more professional it got the more I realized it was what I wanted to do. We got to do thirteen performances of Seussical the Musical in a week and I thought, “I could do this.”
Q: Going back to being Audrey, what did you learn from being Audrey about yourself through the musical and other musicals?
A: When I did Audrey, it wasn’t a struggle but I wanted to be more professional than I was previously, and I learned that it’s not always about being professional. It’s about making connections with people, making friends and knowing the people that you’re working with. It also showed that you don’t have to have the most perfect group of people to have a perfect experience. Also through all the theater things- I always learn something about myself through each character, just because you have to find something within yourself about the character to be the character. Audrey I felt more confident after it was over, because I wasn’t really sure I could do the part and do justice with it and I’m really proud of the work I did with her.
Q: Looking into the future, what would you say would be the part you’re most looking forward to and where you’d want to see yourself, because there’s so many directions you can go in.
A: I’m extremely ambitious, I'm thinking “oh my god I really want to do everything, I want to be on Broadway and in the movies, and on TV and maybe go to London and do Shakespeare!” I’m really interested in doing everything. But a part I’ve always wanted to play was Elphaba in Wicked, and someday it will happen, and I know it will because it’s literally playing everywhere. Someday the rights will get released and someday I’ll play it. Obviously the end game is Broadway, but I realize that might not happen right away and I’ll end up doing some weird things before. I would love to do sketch or improve comedy, whether that means actual SNL I don’t know but that would be so cool. And TV for sure, I would love to do that.
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why bri ryder rocks our world
BY KATE DAVIS