Ryan G. Hinds

This week’s guest is theatre & cabaret performer, astronomy enthusiast, and 2022 Neil Munro Directing Intern at the Shaw Festival, Ryan G. Hinds.

A Toronto-based theatre artist and cabaret performer, Ryan has performed #KanderAndEbb at the Stratford Festival (with digital appearances from John Kander and Chita Rivera); We Will Rock You for Magnus Theatre; Starry Notions for Toronto Fringe; Hedwig in Hedwig & the Angry Inch at the Capitol Theatre; and Piragua Guy in In The Heights for We Are Here. An Artist-in-Residence at Buddies in Bad Times from 2014 to 2016, Ryan is also an Associate Artist at lemonTree Creations, where the work has included Lydie-Anne in Lilies; Or, The Revival of a Romantic Drama; the development, premiere, remount and national tour of dance-theatre hybrid MSM [men seeking men]; and the world premiere of Private Eyes (in association with the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario).

Currently one of the two 2022 Neil Munro Directing Interns at the Shaw Festival and Assistant Director for Damn Yankees, The Importance of Being Earnest, and Gem of the Ocean, Ryan’s work as a director includes Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley for Theatre New Brunswick; 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee for Vanier College Productions at York University; Cock-Tales with Maria for Tapestry Opera; MacArthur Park Suite: A Disco Ballet for Summerworks; and Little Pretty & the Exceptional for Factory Theatre (asst to Brendan Healy). An alumnus of Randolph Academy’s Triple Threat program, Ryan is a graduate of Generator’s Artistic Producer Training program, a member of the 2019 co-hort of Director’s Lab North, the 2017 Factory Theatre “Factory Foremen” intensive program, and the 2016 Obsidian Theatre Mentor/Apprentice Program.

Ryan is proudly serving a second term on the national council of Canadian Actors’ Equity Association, and has shared stages and screens with artists such as Taylor Mac, Todrick Hall, Liza Minnelli, Billy Stritch, Debbie Reynolds and more.

ryanghinds.com
Twitter: @ryanghinds
Instagram: @ryanghinds

Support Stageworthy
Tip Jar: tips.pinecast.com/jar/stageworthy

Transcript

[Phil Rickaby]
Welcome to Stageworthy, I’m Phil Rickaby, the host of this podcast. This is episode three hundred and thirty six. My guest this week is Ryan G. Hinds.

Ryan is a Toronto based theatre artist and cabaret performer. His show, Candor and Eb, was a hit at both the Toronto Fringe Festival and the Stratford Festival.

He is also serving his second term on the National Council of Canadian Actors Equity Association. Ryan is also currently one of the Neil Monroe directing interns at the 2022 Shaw Festival. Here’s our conversation.

So, I mean, we should just jump in and we should talk about about the Shaw Festival and your experience so far. Just just just your your the intern director, intern assistant director. What’s the official title?

[Ryan G. Hinds]
The official title is The Neil Monroe Directing Intern. It came about in the most lovely of ways. It was opening night of a play that I was directing in New Brunswick in December last year, and I got home from the opening and there was a little blinking light on my phone saying I had a voicemail.

So I thought, oh, I want to go to sleep, but maybe maybe I should check it. I don’t know. So I decided to check it.

And it was Kimberly Rampersad, the associate artistic director of Shaw, calling to offer me the position and wanting to have a thought about it. So it just feels really, really good to be here as intern director. I’m assistant director to Brian Hill on Dem Yankees, Tim Carroll on The Importance of Being Earnest and Philip Aiken on Gem of the Ocean, as well as directing my own play in the director’s project in September, as well as leading some of the pre-show chats and the post-show chats, as well as talking to donors and Shaw members about the plays and about the experience of of being in the rehearsal room.

So it’s a it’s a pretty, pretty all-encompassing situation that I found myself in here. And I’m just so grateful. I love it.

I love the company. I love Shaw. Niagara-on-the-Lake is so beautiful now that it’s summer, not winter.

And it’s just so lovely just to really immerse myself in in theatre making for the year.

[Phil Rickaby]
It’s quite the quite the job description. There’s a lot there’s a lot to that. Did you did you do you start in like February or something like that?

[Ryan G. Hinds]
Yeah, I started I started in early February. It was very, very snowy and icy. And at the beginning of it, you know, I’ll admit to some fear because every time you assist somebody, it’s always a different process.

Some directors just want you to get coffee. Some directors show up absolutely blotto and you have to do all of the work. And some directors are really, really great about leaning over and soliciting your opinion and asking you to do a little bit of research here and there and helping manage what’s happening in the room artistically and helping them make decisions.

And I’m very, very fortunate that all three of the directors I’ve assisted are the latter. Brian Hill was just amazing and kind and generous and so, so sorely needed in this COVID time. A cool, unflappable cat.

Nothing was going to ruffle his feathers. Tim Carroll is the artistic director of the festival, as well as directing Importance of Being Earnest. So, you know, I had some I had some intimidation moments just about like assisting the big boss.

But as soon as I as soon as I was able to make him laugh, I knew it was going to be a good time. And Philip Aiken, what can I say about Philip Aiken? You know, just such a thorough artist.

Somebody who who loves the art form and is so craftful. Assisting Philip is great because we get to work on the play. But then after rehearsal, Philip’s been really generous with his time and teaching me about more about the craft of directing and and text work and vocal production and how he gets things out of people.

So I’m really getting a really well-rounded directing education here.

[Phil Rickaby]
Now, I’ve known of you primarily as an actor, cabaret performer. I do know that I remember seeing on your Instagram about directing last last winter. But I’m curious about was directing something you always wanted to do or is it something new?

What what was the directing journey?

[Ryan G. Hinds]
Well, for me, growing up and for the bulk of my career, I really was kind of about being being a journeyman actor. I was very happy going from from gig to gig and from from show to show. I love doing cabaret and it’s it’s it’s really satisfying.

But every now and then in rehearsals, I would get I would start thinking about things that had nothing to do with me and things that were more the big picture responsibility for the show. And so it kind of got to a point where I thought, well, OK, if I have some of the ideas, some of these ideas, it might be time for me to maybe assistant director, maybe create my own show. And that’s what I did.

I assisted some people. I had a show in 2015 called MacArthur Park Suite at Disco Ballet, wherein I made a literal ballet out of the Donna Summer big, big disco medley. And that was really satisfying, trying to trying to solve creative problems and trying to envision nice stage pictures and how to tell the story.

So after that, Nina, Nina Leah Kino, who runs Factory, got in touch with me and said, OK, I’m putting you in Factory’s director training program. And that wasn’t something that was really on my radar. She really just kind of saw that I was interested and reached out and put me on that path.

So I’ve a lot to thank Nina for. So I did that. I got to assist Brendan Healy directing a play at Factory and things just kind of snowballed from there.

I got more and more interested in not just performing, but setting the stage, telling the full picture, helping and guiding an entire team towards a single artistic goal. I’ve been an associate artist at Lemon Tree Creations for a number of years, and a lot of my time there has been about performing. But then in 2019, we had a big production of the Michel Marc Bouchard play Lilies, and I had a big part in it.

It was a dream role. But I was also part of the core artistic team involved in the decisions and discussions about the production as a whole. So that made me hungry.

And I took the Directors Lab North training program that happens at Tarragon every year, where I met Natasha McClellan, who is the artistic director of Theatre New Brunswick. And Natasha is a lovely person and we hit it off as friends. So she invited me to act in the Theatre New Brunswick show.

That season. And as often happens, one day at rehearsal, I was running my mouth. And Natasha later remembered me saying, if you ever need a director, hire me and I’ll direct you a real good show.

Now, I don’t remember saying that, but that is the kind of thing that I absolutely would say. And so last year, coming out of the pandemic, Natasha offered me the chance to direct Theatre New Brunswick’s first big show back. Such a such a compliment and such an honor.

Got to work at the big main stage at Fredericton Playhouse, tour to the Imperial Theatre in St. John, the gorgeous, gorgeous theatre. And I really just wanted to bring some joy and fun and romance and magic and colour to people. And directing that play, I thought, oh, OK, this is something that I’m really ready to make part of my career as opposed to an occasional part.

It’s tricky because I don’t ever want to give up acting. I love performing. I love singing.

I love doing cabaret. But if I can have 50 percent of my year on stage and 50 percent of my year behind the table, I think that will be a really, really good balance. And I think I’ll be really happy with that.

[Phil Rickaby]
That sounds like the kind of like sustainable balance, because you could like do too much of each and just burn yourself out all year. But if you’d have that balance, it might just be like the perfect thing.

[Ryan G. Hinds]
Absolutely. Absolutely. I’m so glad you use that word sustainable because during the pandemic and of course, now that we are maybe coming out of it, maybe not.

Who knows? Sustainable is a word that I think about a lot because I when people say the show must go on. For me, that has always meant the long game, the long range plan of the show must go on.

So because I want to make theatre for the rest of my life, I really do have to think ways that I can make my practice as a performer sustainable, my practice as a director sustainable. Certainly as a performer, you know, I’ve done the three shows a day and I’ve done the back to back to back to back to back, no day off shows. And that has a real cost.

It has a real, real physical cost. And I’m not shy to say my age. I’m forty forty two.

I’ll be forty three in September. But the older I get, the more I do notice the the wear and tear on my body. I can definitely point to my shoulder and say, OK, my shoulder is aching because of that Nuit Blanche performance I did in 2010.

Or my knee is aching because because of this dance move that I did in this musical seven years ago. So you kind of start racking up the injuries and counting the aches and pains and start thinking, OK, if I want to do this for a long time, I better start figuring out a way to do it healthily and sustainably, as you said.

[Phil Rickaby]
I think there’s a lot about the sustainability as as a performer, because I think pre pandemic, when people were out in the world doing things, there is a lot of a lot of theatre makers, a lot of people in the industry who never stopped. There was no time for themselves. There was no no such thing as a vacation.

No time to really know who you were outside of theatre. And then all of a sudden that stops. And now it’s just you and who you are when you’re not acting.

And what is what who are you? And also, like, is running yourself into the ground like that worth it to yourself, to your body, to your mind? Like, sure, it’s it’s like it’s the grind.

But is the grind worth it in the long run? If, you know, you’re you’re killing your passion, killing your body, like just like wearing yourself down.

[Ryan G. Hinds]
And you know, that that’s absolutely been me before. I’m it’s about to be Pride Weekend in Toronto. And there’s definitely been been years where I’ve been performing at Pride.

12, 13, 14, 15 gigs spread over five days, four days. And that’s just not healthy. It just is it’s it’s it’s no good for for your body, for your spirit.

But it’s also not good for your art. People people can tell when you’re running on fumes. People can tell when you have no energy left.

And so that’s something that I I don’t want to put myself in that position again in order to honor my art. I have to rest. I have to take time off and I have to make healthier choices.

[Phil Rickaby]
I think that’s a new and unique perspective to have new in that. It’s one that I think a lot of people wouldn’t have said before all of this, because what somebody would have said is that if if for your career, you have to just just do the job, just do the job. And now it’s like for the for the long for your your to sustain your career, to be able to have a career.

Rest is also important, which is a so such a new thing. I remember years ago, like if you were sick in a show, if you could do it, you would do it right, especially in indie theatre when there were no understudies or anything like that. You would just drag yourself in and you’d get through this show.

And you would count that as if you pat yourself on the back for doing it. Now, I think it’s so much more important that that that, you know, every show is prepared for what do we do if somebody gets sick?

[Ryan G. Hinds]
Yeah, we absolutely can’t go back to before. I’ve worked a lot in indie theatre. I love indie theatre.

I will continue to work in indie theatre whenever they’ll have me. But going forward, it is I think it is absolutely imperative during production to talk about not just understudies, but swings as well. It’s a way of looking out for the company and looking out for the cast.

And if you’re organized and together enough to put on a show, you’re organized and together enough to figure out a system for understudies and swings. It’s something that I’ve become really passionate about, especially here at Shaw this season, where it’s not just COVID. There’s been a lot of injuries as well.

There are times where the only reason the show is able to happen is because of the understudies and swings. And when you cancel a show at a festival like Shaw, it’s not as easy as just telling the audience, OK, go home. When the show is canceled, all the restaurants in town lose money.

All the businesses in town lose money. People drive from all over Ontario and and and come in from the States to see the show. So when it’s canceled, it really has a ripple effect that kind of goes beyond just just taking the night off.

And I think that’s an important lesson for anybody who is in the arts at any level to understand.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, the understudies and swings have been sustaining the theatre for for ages, but even more now. And, you know, what you know, like whenever I see that a show on Broadway or there, I know out in Halifax, a production of Rocky Horror had to shut down for several days because there was nobody healthy enough to do this show like they were.

They were out of understudies and swings, which is a real danger because like I’ve been saying for ages, every time an actor gets on that stage, they’re putting their body and their health on the line, especially right now.

[Ryan G. Hinds]
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.

With Damn Yankees here at Shaw, we actually had to cancel our whole first week of previews. There just weren’t enough people to do the show safely. And in a way, that was going to be artistically what the intent was.

So we we canceled the first week of previews. And again, it goes back to the idea of of my my concept of the show must go out. The show must go on as a long term, long range goal.

The saying isn’t the actor must go on. It’s not the person or the artist must go on. It’s the idea of the show carrying forward and existing in a healthy, a healthy manner, a safe manner.

And anything that any of us can do in order to guarantee that safety and that health has to do with the show must go on. It’s tricky because it’s not as popular saying anymore. And I understand why.

I understand why why some people have have a trouble with it. But for me, it’s all in terms of how you how you interpret it. I’ve definitely been in situations where my name is above the show title.

It’s Ryan Hines in whatever the show is. And so carrying that responsibility of not just wanting to disappoint people, but not wanting to not wanting to disappoint myself is is is really, really a tricky balance. But I was I was come back to the show must go on.

And I was come back to the idea of maintaining myself in a healthy and safe way in order to ensure that the show will go on.

[Phil Rickaby]
Absolutely. One of the things that you as you’ve described your last year and a bit, you’ve it strikes me that you’ve been involved with a lot of early returns to in-person theatre. And I’m curious about your experience of that going from the, you know, digital or shut down entirely to in-person, both at Theatre New Brunswick and also with your own show that you did at Stratford.

If what was that experience like, like moving into the in-person once again?

[Ryan G. Hinds]
Well, I can tell you that if you really ever want to freak yourself out, schedule it so that your first show back from a pandemic is at the Stratford Festival, because that will whip you into shape real quick. I can’t say I can’t say that I wasn’t nervous because I was. I can’t say that I was perfectly in shape to to do the show, the first handful of performances, because I wasn’t.

All the time off, you really do lose the lose the performing dexterity. And you have to figure out how to be comfortable in front of an audience again and how to how to sustain a week long run of shows healthily again after after not singing for a long time. Very fortunately, I felt very supported by not just Stratford, but everybody who was eager to see the show and everybody who was just happy to have something to buy a ticket to.

And it didn’t matter that they had to wear a mask and it didn’t matter that it was going to be a distant seating. They were just hungry, hungry to have theatre and performance in their lives again. So I really did feel the responsibility to kind of step up and meet the moment.

And as as I said, when you’re performing at Stratford, it’s almost kind of like failure isn’t really an option. You really you really have to have to be on your toes. And I was lucky because it’s a show that I’ve done before.

It’s a show that I love. And it’s a show that that ultimately is about my own life. The the secret of my Candor and Ebb show is on the surface.

It’s about Candor and Ebb, but it’s actually about my experiences around Candor and Ebb and their collaborators and their world. So ultimately, secretly, it’s about me. So if that’s the case, then I’m really going to want to put my life on stage in a way that I could be proud of.

So in rehearsal, we were very we were distanced in rehearsal. The band and I, we took every protection possible. Once we got to Stratford, we kind of existed in a little bubble of of just our show, which was a funny, a funny way to be walking out on stage for that first performance.

I was absolutely shaking and shaking in my boots for for sure. Not just nervous for the show, not just nervous for me. I was nervous for the band.

I was nervous for the festival. I was nervous for people in the audience. It was just nervous, nervous, nervous, nervous, nervous.

But as soon as I hit that stage, that big, the big round of applause that happens when a performer that enters, it’s not something I’m going to forget easily. The the funny part was looking out into the audience and seeing an audience full of half faces, just people’s eyes, because everybody had their mask on for some reason. I hadn’t really thought about what that was going to be like.

So I am on stage saying, saying funny things, and I can only see people’s eyes. So I don’t know if they’re laughing. I don’t know if they’re having a good time.

And the first performance I came off stage literally with flop sweat, because I was thinking I couldn’t see anybody laughing. I like nobody was smiling. And the stage manager says, a stage manager calmed me down and said, OK, you couldn’t see anybody smiling because you couldn’t see anybody’s mouth because everybody had a mask on.

So don’t freak out. And I was really, really grateful for that. And then by the end of the week, our closing show that Saturday, it’s it’s it’s hard for me to to talk about without without getting emotional because I’ve been performing for a long time.

But it was just one of those magical the second the band did the first downbeat of music, the audience exploded. I could hear them off stage in my dressing room before I had even set myself for my entrance. And then I made my entrance and people were clapping so long that I kind of lost my place in the music.

And I screwed up the first the first line of the song because I was trying to find the find the rhythm of the music. And then the audience was just with us for the for the whole entire show. It was a beautiful mix of Stratford, Stratford patrons and people I don’t know and people I do know, my family, my friends, people I went to high school with, even so people that I that I’ve known for, you know, 30 years, all just having a great time enjoying the show and being back at the theatre.

And that is something I will never, never forget. They were attuned with with laughter and applause and tears at every single kind of emotional point of the show. Towards the end of the show, the big penultimate number is a big medley from Kiss of the Spider Woman.

And I remember as soon as I hit the final note, the the second that I hit it, the audience was was screaming and cheering. And and it was just I hadn’t ever really had that kind of Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall moment before where the audience’s enjoyment is just so palpable and so exciting and so thrilling. So for me, coming out of the pandemic was completely, completely a joyful thing to do on stage at Stratford.

I’ll share some personal news and we don’t have to dwell on it. But during the pandemic, I lost my mom. My mom died.

Her her cancer journey kind of came to an end. And so getting back to work and having my first time at work be at the Stratford Festival after suffering really the a really, really tough experience losing my mom, it really went a long way to showing me that there was light at the end of the COVID tunnel. And we were going to get back to some sense of of existence that that made sense to all of us.

And we were going to be able to do the things that we enjoy with each other again. So a lot of my experience with Canada and with Stratford is kind of tied up in in in helping get through the grief of of losing my mom. And then the other joyful part of it is, as soon as I found out that I was going to do the show at Stratford, I thought, well, if there was ever an opportunity that I would make some big asks and see if maybe John Kander or Chita Rivera would like to be involved, because a lot of the show is about them and my experiences with them.

Now’s the time. We’ll see what they say. And to my complete surprise, both of them said yes.

So I got to do a big zoom interviews with both of them, talking about with John Kander, I was talking about his work with Fred Ebb and talking about what he was working on now and really doing a deep dive into some of the stories behind his writing of the songs that we all know and love from Chicago and Cabaret in New York, New York. And with Chita, it was about a 40 minute interview about some of the times that we’ve had together, some of the memories that we’ve had together and how she ended up being my mentor and how it happened that at age 12, she came into my life and changed it in such a great way. So in addition to working through the grief of my mom, doing a Kander and Ebb show at Stratford is also connected to the incredible experience of getting to interview my music theatre hero in John Kander and have my mentor, on the other hand, metaphorically hold my hand and tell me everything was going to be okay and tell me that she believed in me in a very, very public way.

So the whole experience was really, really special for me. Really, really special.

[Phil Rickaby]
First, let me say I’m sorry for the loss of your mom.

[Ryan G. Hinds]
Thank you. Thank you. My mom loved the theatre.

She would be one of the first people back buying a ticket, putting a mask on and doing whatever she needed to do to enjoy it. I miss her. But something that she said kind of towards the end was she wanted me to be able to move on with my life and not let the sadness of her leaving affect me too much.

So that was also in my head when I was getting ready for Stratford. And that’s also something that I return to a lot as it seems like we’re kind of moving out of the crisis days of the pandemic. There’s always something to look forward to.

And there’s always something to laugh at. And those are two things that I learned from my mom and I’m carrying with me every day.

[Phil Rickaby]
Hmm. I’m curious about the journey of Kander and Em, that show, from its really wildly successful run at the Toronto Fringe to Stratford. How did that come about?

[Ryan G. Hinds]
Well, I’ll actually take it back a bit earlier. So when I was in, I was an artist in residence at Buddies and Bad Times from 2014 to 2016. And one of the first ideas that I had was I wanted to do a Kander and Em cabaret.

So I remember writing it and putting it up. I remember being in my dressing room at Buddies thinking, Oh, okay, there’s, there’s like a handful of people up front. Nobody’s gonna be super interested in this other than me.

So let’s, let’s just do it. I can say I’ve done it and I can move on to other things. And then I came out on stage and and there was a surprisingly huge crowd that really demonstrated some love and affection for the music.

My Kander and Em cabaret is it’s, it’s mostly not about the big hits. It’s about some of their lesser known material. So I was surprised that people were as into it as they were.

So on on basis of the reception that it had at Buddies, I did it a few times elsewhere, I was able to tour it to Montreal and to New York City, where we played in the aptly named cabaret Don’t Tell Mama, which is a song from from the musical cabaret. And then I’m not sure. I’m not sure how she heard of it.

But Lucy Evely, who runs, oh, my phone’s going off and I have to silence that. Lucy Evely, who runs the Toronto Fringe Festival, reached out and invited me into the festival and said, we’ll give you a slot. We’d be happy to have you.

And so I thought, well, here’s an opportunity that I can really, I can really do justice to the show. I can add some production design, I can beef up the band a little bit. And that’s exactly what we did.

The designer Joe Pagnon came on board. We added Quentin Naughton to the band on synth to flesh out some of the orchestrations. And I don’t know why it was so successful.

I think it’s because people really love Kander and Ebb’s music. I think it’s because my passion and my joy at getting to sing it is really, really palpable. I’ve always believed that whatever you’re passionate about, whatever that special thing that makes you glow is, that’s what you should put in your art.

That’s what you should put on stage. And so for me, that’s the music of Kander and Ebb. And so we sold out the entire run, which has never happened to me before at Fringe.

We got the kind of reviews that you can only dream about, really. And after Fringe, I thought, okay, well, this is as far as the show can go. I’ve had this wonderful experience.

People have been so lovely about the show, and I can put it to bed. And then here comes another story about my mom. Towards the end of her cancer journey, out of the blue, my mom said, out of everything you’ve ever done, your Kander and Ebb show was my favorite that I saw.

You should do it at Stratford. And I thought, Mom, Stratford Festival is not sitting around waiting for me to call them and pitch them a show. And she cut me off and she said, no, no, no, no.

You should do that. You should make that effort. Just try.

The worst they can do is say no. And so one night during the pandemic, a few weeks after my mom died, literally in the middle of the night, I took a chance and I DM’d Antony Cimolino on Twitter. I don’t know Antony Cimolino.

I’ve never met him. I’ve got no ins at Stratford. And the next morning, he DM’d me back and sent me his email.

And so I emailed him and I said, okay, I’ve got this show. Maybe you might be interested in it. And because their production of Chicago had been delayed, it was supposed to happen last year, Antony had the idea, okay, so if we can’t give our audience Chicago, this is a way that we could give them some of the music from Chicago and maybe some stories about Chicago’s creation.

So in a weird twist of fate, my show helped fill a hole in their programming. It was useful to them. And so that’s really truly how it happened.

It’s a good lesson because if I hadn’t messaged him, if I hadn’t taken a wild swing for the fences, it never would have happened. So after doing that, I have learned that the only person who can kind of trip you up sometimes is yourself if you don’t take a chance, if you don’t think big and really aim for the fences. So Antony said yes, we had some more meetings throughout the pandemic.

He agreed to program it. And at the beginning of summer last year, I got to make the announcement that I never thought I would make in my life that I was going to do Candor and Abbots at the Stratford Festival.

[Phil Rickaby]
As you tell that story, a question occurs to me. Would you consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert?

[Ryan G. Hinds]
It’s funny you should ask. On stage, I seem pretty extroverted. And when I’m on, I’m pretty extroverted.

But to tell you the truth, when I’m just walking around in my daily life, I’m pretty introverted. I almost always have headphones on. I don’t always like talking to people.

If I’m ever on a bus, it’s always like, like the back corner. If I’m ever somewhere, I’m always kind of like hugging a wall kind of thing. There’s elements of me that are that kind of fall on on both sides.

[Phil Rickaby]
I find I mean, as an introvert myself, it’s the being on stage is completely different from being out in the world. I can perform, I feel like I have control of an audience, all of that sort of stuff. You know, like if you’re especially doing is like a solo performance, you’re on your own, you’re doing the thing, this audience, you’re taking them on the journey, get me off stage.

And I that’s when like all of that goes away.

[Ryan G. Hinds]
It’s true. It’s true. On stage, I feel I feel very, very safe and protected.

When I’m just at the grocery store, who knows what people are gonna do?

[Phil Rickaby]
How are you? How are you coming out of a show out of a performance? Like if people are there, and they want to talk to you?

How are you with that?

[Ryan G. Hinds]
I enjoy it because for so long, it was it was me who was at the stage door. And it was me who was there with a Sharpie and a camera waiting for people. So I always like like a post show chat.

When I walk off stage, I really am buzzed and amped up. And so I find dealing with people post show kind of helps me work off some of that energy and come back to come back to neutral.

[Phil Rickaby]
One of the things that I always like to ask people about on this show is their theatre origin story. You’ve alluded to the fact I think that you were drawn to the theatre quite young. But I’m curious about what your journey to coming to the theatre was.

And when did you know that it was going to be your life?

[Ryan G. Hinds]
Yeah. Well, when I was three, to literally go back that far, my mom took me to see a marionette puppet performance at the local library. And I remember it was Babar the Elephant.

And I don’t remember the story. But I do remember how the story made the people around me feel. I remember people laughing.

And I remember people being sad when a sad thing happened. And so that was kind of the first thing that I really became aware of it. And then when I was six, my mom and my godmother took me to see the original Toronto production of Cats at the Elgin Theatre.

And it was one of those nights that just imprinted itself so much on my memory. I remember what wine they ordered at intermission. I remember every single thing that happened on stage.

And I remember how it made me feel. And again, I remember how the audience laughed at the funny parts and were emotional at the sad parts. And I went home that night and told my mom that that was what I wanted to do.

And then I was in grade one at the time, I believe. And starting the next day in grade one, I still have my workbooks from then. I was drawing pictures of the characters from Cats and saying that’s what I wanted to grow up to be.

So there really wasn’t ever a situation where I was going to grow up and be something else, I think. My whole career has kind of been about trying to recreate the magic of being six and seeing Cats for the first time. And I just got on that path and I knew theatre was going to be it for me.

I started doing community theatre. There’s a story that my family kind of tells where my mom came home from work and I was literally on the phone with the local community theatre trying to score an audition. And nobody knows how I got the phone number or nobody knows how I thought to call them or ask.

But I scored a role as Tiny Tim’s best friend in A Christmas Carol at the Meadowvale Theatre. And that was my first time on stage. And never, truly never looked back.

I ended up going to an arts high school, Cothor Park in Mississauga, where I’m from. Great school. I loved it there.

I went to Randolph Academy for one year. It wasn’t a great year for me. And I like sharing this because a lot of people really kind of like put a lot of stock in education.

A lot of theatre is about craft. A lot of theatre is about just doing it. So if you don’t do well at theatre school, it doesn’t mean that you’re not cut out to be an artist or cut out to be a performer.

It just means you didn’t do great at theatre school. And that was my truth. That’s what I experienced.

At the end of the year, there was a meeting with the faculty about whether I was going to be kicked out or whether I was going to drop out on my own. And fortunately, the question was solved for me because the next day, David Warwick offered me the part of the lion in a touring production of The Wiz that he was doing. So I started working and again, I just I didn’t have the time or the inclination to look back.

I just jumped right in right into it.

[Phil Rickaby]
I find I remember my days in theatre school and I went to George Brown and we every semester there was that you would meet with the faculty like you did and they were very similar conversations. And I was I started every one of those with well, you’ll leave the program and somehow managed to claw my way to let them, you know, let them let me stay. But I found that as an experience, so toxic, because that meant that every day after that first semester, I lived in fear that they were going to kick me out.

You don’t make good art when you’re afraid.

[Ryan G. Hinds]
No, you don’t make good art. You certainly have trouble studying trying to get the school work is done is difficult. For me, when I was at Randolph, I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted to do as an artist.

I had a pretty, pretty clear sense of self when I was that age. And I remember them saying things to me, things like, you can’t always pick a queer role or queer monologue or a queer song to sing. That’s not going to be your career.

And in the rear view mirror, when I look at how much work I’ve done at Buddies and Bad Times, that’s turned out not to be true. I’ve done I’ve done a lot of queer work, as have all of Canada’s best actors, Walter Borden, Brent Carver, like so many the list goes on and on and on and on. For me, the ideal theatre school environment is where you you learn and you grow, not an environment in which you’re constantly cut down or worn down.

That’s not I think, something that is a good way to learn how to make theatre.

[Phil Rickaby]
No, I fully agree that back, you know, they used to use the term the phrase, we built we tear you down, so we can build you back up. And I remember, you know, going through and I bought into that, okay, sure, this is all part of the process, they’re going to tear us down so they can build us back up. And then at a certain point, I finished theatre school, and I was like, they forgot the second half.

Oh, they spent like three years, like, essentially tearing us down. And they didn’t do the other part. Also, they swore up and down that the tearing you down was about, you know, stripping away your bad acting habits, but it really felt like it was more than it was like literally tearing us down.

[Ryan G. Hinds]
Absolutely.

[Phil Rickaby]
So it’s, that is a toxic environment. I think, you know, too often, people go into school and the schools tell them, this is the career that you will have. And in no time do people say, you can make the career that you want.

And we can’t tell you what that’s going to look like, we can give you the tools so you can make it instead of what I think a lot of schools do do is this is the career, here’s the box, you fit into this, please. Yeah.

[Ryan G. Hinds]
And the whole magic of theatre is it’s about imagination. It’s about creativity. It’s not about fitting into a box.

You know, like, I can’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday. But I remember things that some of my instructors told me in theatre school that hurt then and still hurt now, all these years later. So for me, finding my path and really, really sticking with the things that I was interested in, and I wanted to do not somebody else’s idea of those things.

I have found I have found a good path to be on a good lane to be in.

[Phil Rickaby]
Sometimes I think some some teachers don’t realise the impact that they have. I remember, it took me nearly 10 years to stop internally trying to impress the head of acting at George Brown. And it took ages and all you know, finally, I get over it.

And then I’m finally in 2019, performing my solo show at the Toronto Fringe. And he sits in the second row, and I can see him clearly and automatically I’m thrown. Suddenly, I was right back there.

And I was like, why? I thought I saw I thought I got over this, but somehow I hadn’t.

[Ryan G. Hinds]
Well, it’s like, thank goodness for for getting older and for maturing and for the the healing qualities of what theatre can can do for us.

[Phil Rickaby]
What are the speaking of theatre and that I know that that you have this desire to for theatre to be your career and not that you’re not really interested in film and television. Has that because I know sometimes it feels like some people are like I’m doing theatre until I can do film and television. I felt like theatre is my calling.

And I know you do as well. Have you the when did you come to that, that realisation that it was theatre that you wanted to do and not really the film and TV?

[Ryan G. Hinds]
Well, I think another one of the magic things about what theatre is, it’s it’s the energy exchange between us and the audience. It’s everybody inhaling at the same time breathing the same air feeling the same emotion. You just can’t replicate that that feeling or that experience in any way, on film or on TV.

During the pandemic, virtual theatre happened in a lot of exciting, fresh ways. But it wasn’t the same thing. And I don’t think it needed to be the same thing.

Theatre is its own live experience. I’ve had situations where I’ve done commercials, and I’ll be sitting at home. And then my commercial will be on.

And it’s feels strange to me that that the work that I’ve done is being seen by so many people. But I’m sitting on my couch eating popcorn, half dressed, having kind of kind of a slovenly day. Theatre is theatre is invigorating for me, in a way that film and TV isn’t there’s a lot of waiting in film and TV.

You get there early, you sit in there in your trailer in your dressing room, you wait for makeup and hair and then the shooting schedule. And you know, sometimes like, like, like five, six hours can go by, and you’re still sitting there and you haven’t done anything. In the theatre, you get to the studio and you warm up and if you’re not needed, you’re you’re not called that day.

And then once you get into into your run, once you’re actually doing doing your show, you have a really, really good sense of I, I did this work, I was on my feet, I was dropped in, I was in the moment I was present. I was responding to, to the energy of the actor in my scene, I was responding to the audience. None of that really happens in in film and TV.

And I don’t mean to I don’t mean to trash film and TV because I like I am an actor member, I absolutely will do those gigs when they come along. Certainly, there’s a lot more money involved on that side of things than in theatre. But it’s just, it’s just a different, it’s just a different thing.

It’s just a different calling. Some people really have the skill for for film and TV, and really know how to make it work for them. And there were things that I watch and I think to myself, I would love to be able to do that.

But the fact is, not to get too self deprecating, some of us some of us need need the distance from the audience in order to be glamorous. Some of us need the the the sharp angle of stage lighting to to bring out the magic from within us. Some of us need a big space for our for our voices to vibrate through.

And all of those things are just different when it comes to film and TV.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, I remember I was working with somebody non theatre day job stuff. And I was trying to express the they didn’t quite understand why theatre why like, what did I like better about theatre than like film or television. And I said, I’m gonna I’m gonna give you an example.

If you watch a film, and somebody gets slapped, you shrug it off, right? Doesn’t really have any impact. There is not a single time that somebody has been slapped on stage that a ripple of something doesn’t go through the audience.

Because it’s right there in the room. It happened right there. You heard that slap, you felt it.

And I was like, that is that is it. That’s the difference. It is visceral in the room.

[Ryan G. Hinds]
It’s an immediate response. It’s an immediate response to to what’s happening on stage. As somebody who does musical theatre and and cabaret, as a performer, I’m pretty fond of big, big choices.

And and as a singer, I have a big voice, I’m always thinking about hitting the back row of the theatre. And so conversely, every every single time I’ve ever filmed anything, be it film, TV, commercial, whenever I’ve been in front of a camera, we do the first take, they cut and the director always turns me and says, Okay, we need you to bring it down. Every time.

And sure, absolutely. I’m happy to, but my instincts are always theatre instincts are always about how to how to reach the people at the back how to reach the people at the sides. I’m thrilled.

I’m thrilled. I’m thrilled for my friends who, who do film and TV. A lot of them live in a lot nicer places than I do.

But I’m a creature of the theatre. And and that’s truly where I’m happiest.

[Phil Rickaby]
I had I did do I did a small film, some some director guys, they usually went to animation, and they were like, we want to work in the immediacy of film. And so they, like, they wrote this little little thing. And they they auditioned, they found some actors that they really wanted to work with.

And then after their first reading, they were like, first, we had lots of time, but they were like, Oh, we hired a bunch of theatre actors. But what we did then was we had regular rehearsals. And that let us get our theatrical performance out.

And they helped us craft a film performance out of it. And it’s the it’s quite frankly, the only film I’ve ever done where I felt like, yeah, I got that. I did that.

That was that was right. You know, you are a an amateur astronomer. What’s what sparked your your love of the stars?

And, and how often do you I know you live in the city, it’s probably nicer out in the in in Niagara on the lake to sit and watch the stars. Tell me about tell me about that.

[Ryan G. Hinds]
Well, it’s, it started a number of years ago, I was stressed out about something. And the fact that I can’t even remember what it was, I should tell you how how consequential it was. But I was sitting on my balcony and looking up at the sky and thinking about thinking about what was out there.

And suddenly my problem seemed so inconsequential. Like, why was I devoting so much energy to being worried and upset and stressed over and anxious about this, when in the great, in the greater picture of things, it just did not matter. And after that night, I just started started doing it more often.

And I would look at the sky and I would try to identify a constellation or a planet or, or how the stars would move across the sky over over a course of hours. So I ended up I ended up actually getting a pair of binoculars and sitting out and and watching the sky and getting up closest to the moon and and seeing seeing Saturn’s rings from far away can’t see them in great detail on my on my binoculars, but I can definitely look at Saturn and see how it looks different from Jupiter. And seeing Jupiter in the sky and and and the little moons around Jupiter is wild, because they’re so much bigger than our planet.

The size of it, the scale of it just just blows my mind. And the fact that, you know, we can send little, we can send our little spaceships to the moon, we can spend our send out little things to the International Space Station. But there’s just so much out there that we just don’t know.

And we’ll never know. It’s just so far beyond our understanding. And so I find that when life on Earth gets super stressful, and and and it’s hard for me to handle things, which I think we can all look back at the past few years and and see that’s the situation that we’ve been in.

I just look up at the sky and and I watch the moon and I think about the the craters on the moon and and the rings of Saturn and the moons of Jupiter, the different constellations and very, very soon all my worries about what’s happening in my personal life, what’s happening here on Earth, they kind of melt away a bit. And I find myself a little bit a little bit calmer, a little bit more relaxed, and a little bit more clear headed, which helps me face whatever I’m going through, or deal with whatever I have to deal with. I find that looking up at the stars and and thinking about how long they’ve been there, how long their starlight has been raining down on us, how as human beings, we’re literally made of stardust.

Those thoughts really help clear my head and and help me be able to to handle my life. So it’s a bit, I do get a bit woo woo, but it’s a fun place to be. Where I live in Toronto, I have a big wide balcony that’s actually pretty great for stargazing.

We have a big, big, wide, long balcony, I can watch the moon go through most of the sky. The last planetarium conjunction I watched from my balcony, it was Jupiter, Mars, Neptune, and Saturn, and that’s pretty cool. And you’re right out here in Niagara-on-the-Lake, the sky is so clear at night, so beautiful.

We had a full moon last week, and I actually went to the lounge of the theatre, of Shaw’s Festival Theatre, sat out on the lounge with my binoculars, and I watched the full moon fly by, the full moon, the full strawberry moon, it was beautiful. The security guard came by to ask what I was doing. I said, oh, I’m just, I’m just watching the moon, and he went on his way.

And it’s just a really, truly a nice way to just center yourself and think about the things that are past your own experience.

[Phil Rickaby]
Ryan, thank you so much for getting, letting me talk with you. It’s been a real joy.

[Ryan G. Hinds]
My pleasure. From candor and up to the stars in the sky, what a conversation.

[Phil Rickaby]
Stageworthy is a Canadian theatre podcast produced by Phil Rickaby. That’s me. Stageworthy is a one person operation.

So not only do I arrange the guests and perform the interviews, I also edit the show, promote the show, and I even created the music that you’re hearing right now. I also shoulder all the financial responsibilities for keeping the show going while giving you this show for free. So if you enjoy this podcast, please consider supporting it.

There are a few ways that you can do that. If you listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, you can leave a five star rating. And if you listen on Apple Podcasts, you can also leave a review.

Those reviews and ratings help new people to find the show. If you want to keep up with what’s going on with Stageworthy and my other projects, you can subscribe to my newsletter by going to philrickaby.com slash subscribe. And you can also leave a tip for the show by dropping some change in the virtual tip jar.

I will put a link to that in the show notes which you can find on the website or in your podcast app. But one of the most important things that you can do even more important than ratings, reviews or even financial support is to share on social media. Even retweeting this episode will help.

You can find Stageworthy on Twitter and Instagram at stage where they pod and you can find the website with the archive of all the episodes at stageworthy.ca. If you want to find me, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram at philrickaby. And as I mentioned, my website is philrickaby.com. See you next week for another episode.