Ryan Shively ('93 Theatre Performance graduate)
First published in Findlay Magazine.
Many have followed the lure of footlights and marquees, heeding the call of The Great White Way. While Broadway has been the great aspiration of actors and actresses for decades, few have the talent and drive to achieve their dreams. Richard Ryan Shively ’93 is one of those few.
Shively has secured roles on Broadway and off, as well as appeared in a number of regional productions.
His favorite role so far has been playing the leading character of Amos Beeves in the Broadway production of The Man Who Had All the Luck at the Roundabout Theatre. Amos is a baseball pitcher who has been trying to break into the major leagues for many years. His father and trainer lives through him vicariously, and the climatic confrontation comes after Amos is told by a Detroit Tigers scout that he doesn’t have the requisite ability to play the bases. “It was just an incredible challenge every night to reenact that particular scene,” Shively said.
The play was the first written by the great playwright Arthur Miller, and it ran only four performances in its original Broadway run, Shively said. “It failed because nobody knew how to do it at the time. Since then, of course, we’ve seen Arthur Miller’s whole cannon of work, so we know what he’s about,” he explained. Director Scott Ellis resurrected the play, which ran a season of four months at the Roundabout Theatre.
Shively credited the director, cast and crew with making the play an outstanding experience, along with the opportunity to work with the famed Arthur Miller himself. “Every night we were going out there and telling the story fresh and new, and it just was amazing,” he said.
At The Gershwin Theatre, Shively played Thomas Jefferson in 1776, a musical about the signing of the Declaration of Independence. “It was a cast of 26 men, and the show opens with every man on stage in Congress singing at full voice,” he described. “The effect was very powerful. It was a great experience for me.”
He also has played Sandy in The Man Who Came to Dinner at the Roundabout, which also was filmed by PBS for a stage-on-screen television series. “They just basically came in and set up their cameras, adjusted the lighting, and we performed it in front of a live audience,” he said. Shively is thrilled to have a tape of his professional work, because otherwise it’s illegal to record Broadway shows.
Shively has been on film before when he appeared in a documentary for the Learning Channel about The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. In his first job after he joined the Screen Actors Guild, he played Nick Carraway, the narrator of the story, in the reenactment portion of the program.
Although film and television work are rare in New York City, Shively has appeared in “Law & Order” and on the soap opera, “All My Children.” Those experiences were enlightening for Shively, who had found himself critical of television performances previously. According to Shively, actors are given a script, perhaps the night before, and they must not only learn the lines, but be able to give a performance in front of an entire cast and crew, with little or no rehearsal. “I watch with a whole new respect for what they do,” he said.
In addition, he has played in regional theatres in Cleveland, Boston, Buffalo and Syracuse, N.Y. At Williamstown, Mass., in the Berkshire Mountains, he performed with Chris O’Donnell, known for his roles in “Batman” as Robin, “Circle of Friends” and “Scent of a Woman,” who was starring in his first-ever play. In October, Shively appeared at the Public Theatre in New York in a reading of Two Noble Kinsmen, Shakespeare’s last play, which he wrote in conjunction with a man named John Fletcher.
Shively’s success is remarkable, especially when considering that in high school he was an introvert who was focused on joining the ROTC and a career in the military. He spent his free time working odd jobs such as mowing lawns and clerking at Sears. “My senior year rolled around, and I wanted to graduate having done something to get involved, aside from working,” he remembered.
Failing to make the soccer team, he auditioned for a play and got the role. By the end of the year, he had gone on to perform the lead in the musical. The high school drama director took a personal interest in Shively, and the summer after graduation he took Shively to a theatre conference in Muncie, Ind. Shively met the late Barry Alexander, then director of theatre at The University of Findlay, at the conference and consequently enrolled at Findlay.
Out of the nine productions he appeared in during his undergraduate years at Findlay, Shively most cherishes the role he played in Orphans, a three-man play, which included Barry Alexander. Shively termed it “an incredible experience.” Alexander remained a source of encouragement, even after Shively went on to grad school at Purdue University. “He was a really positive force in my life, even today he is actually, even though he died many years ago,” Shively said.
As he handled a volume of Shakespeare that had been a gift from Alexander, Shively remarked, “It just makes me realize how blessed I’ve been to have come in contact with people who took such an interest in my career and my well-being and me as a person. I’m so glad that I did not choose to be a pilot in the military. I can’t even tell you how rich life has been, not without its difficulties, but this has just been an amazing ride. Findlay was definitely a part of that.”
Shively further honed his acting skills at Purdue and added to his performance repertoire with training in unarmed hand-to-hand combat and armed combat with swords.
From Purdue, where he graduated in 1996, Shively arrived in New York with no contacts. He began by sending out headshots to agents. After months of trying, he eventually got an audition for an understudy, but didn’t get the role. Instead, he was hired as a reader for others who were auditioning. It was the break he needed.
As a reader, he had the opportunity to meet directors and casting directors, he said. Soon, he appeared as an understudy in an off-Broadway production of All My Sons, where agents came to see him, and two asked him to sign. “That was the beginning of my career,” he said.
Shively’s advice to young people contemplating a career in theatre is “to follow your heart and give yourself the chance to at least try to pursue your dreams, even if only for a year.” Shively added, “You at least will have had the experience of taking that risk.”
He noted that it is harder to try working a regular job first and then walk away from a steady paycheck, acknowledging, “it’s a hard lifestyle, and it’s one that has a great degree of uncertainty.”
For Shively, taking the risk and perseverance paid off in success. He can savor with satisfaction the knowledge that dreams can come true.
