Andrew Ryker
The Show Was Done
The purpose of this project is to provide a collection of transcriptions from the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. This project seeks to give a platform to all parts of the vocal performing arts to better understand the lived experiences and mentality of those professionals. In collecting stories from the COVID-19 pandemic Andrew Ryker, Assistant Professor of Opera and Voice, and Director of Opera at Ohio University, spoke about having to cancel a production of Little Women. Additionally, he offers a lively addendum that reflects on the pandemic and discusses opportunities he sees for the future.
Andrew Ryker, Assistant Professor of Opera/Voice and Director of Opera at Ohio University
Interviewed March 18, 2020
TB: Thank you for speaking with me today. Would you mind talking a bit about the work that you are doing currently?
AR: Sure. I am currently the Assistant Professor of Voice and Opera at Ohio University. What that really means is that I am the director of all opera productions and the producer for those productions as well. I also teach voice lessons to nine or ten students each semester.
I do anything and everything related to getting the show on its feet. That includes the normal work of a stage director and all of the hiring and musical production—and all of the casting, purchasing of props, costumes, and materials to build the set. Basically, I do anything and everything, except build costumes and sets.
TB: Could you tell me a bit about where you were and how you first realized that COVID-19 was going to have a profound effect on your life?
AR: Actually, the first thing that really started was in Italy. When they started cancelling productions and performances in Italy, that is when I started to get worried because I have a summer gig in Italy. It has been cancelled now, but I was supposed to be there with FIO Italia in Urbania, Italy, for five weeks putting on a couple of operas and directing all of their opera scenes. After that, I had been watching really closely because it seemed like it was getting out of hand in Italy without considering it might hit us in the US.
TB: When did you realize that this would have an impact on your teaching?
AR: The first thing that happened to us was, the administration told us when we came back from spring break that we would be doing a couple of weeks online. That already messed up the opera production because we needed to go straight from spring break into sitzprobe and tech. Delaying that coming back in person also pushed the production back. Then for about half a week, we worked to put everything back together and find new dates for the orchestra, conductor, venue, and designers that were coming in from California for this particular production.
We scrambled to put it all back together for April. We thought April 10-11 because the 12th was Easter. So we had to go from three performances to two. But suddenly, four or five days later, it was announced that we would not be coming back. There would be online classes for the remainder of the semester. All of that work was for nothing.
TB: Remind me, which opera were you doing?
AR: Mark Adamo's Little Women. We put a lot of energy into this complicated piece. It was definitely very challenging work. The space that we are in has the orchestra behind the performers, so we had prepared the incredibly hard music to be performed basically without a conductor. There was really a lot of work that went into it beforehand.
TB: You were already battling these very difficult musical obstacles, and then COVID-19 arrived. What would you say has been the biggest loss to your students?
AR: Initially, I think they thought it might be a loss of a credit on their resume. That was the first thing. But I have made it very clear that I intend for them to put all of this on their resume. They did all of the work that was needed to be done. It is nobody's business what came to happen in the end. They did the work, learned the role, and were fantastic. Sadly, nobody will hear or see it.
Once it all came apart, I think people felt the loss of the ensemble of the group and experience. There was definitely a sense of, "I can't believe this thing is done. We have just started to get a sense of this story and to feel like a family."
TB: That makes perfect sense because one of the biggest parts of the experience is developing community, right?
AR: Yes, over the course of a production, a cast becomes like a family, which had really started to happen with this group. They had gotten over the hump of feeling that this music was so hard and they couldn't get it. And they were getting to the point where they felt they were able to tell the story and become these characters.
TB: How has this impacted your creative process?
AR: Fortunately, my part of the process was mostly done at this point. I had done all of the musical preparation and all the staging. All of my meetings with designers and everything else were also set. It was all basically set. I keep saying it was the show that never was. There has never been anything like this before and hopefully never will be again.
TB: How are you feeling with preparation for upcoming productions?
AR: I would say that, in general, it is not affecting my preparation for the future. It does make me wonder what we could do to avoid something like this from happening again. But I don't know what that is yet. There are so many colleges and professional companies that are having to cancel their productions. I don't know that there was any way around this as we realized that the heart of what we could not do was congregate together. The show was done.
TB: What would you say is the hardest lesson that you have learned in this situation?
AR: That's a hard question, but it might be that there isn't any single production that you can take for granted. I've done so many of these shows that this was not a special experience for me. But looking back on it, I wish that I had put more into it and invested more time with the cast. And I wish I had talked with them about the show and its preparation, which would have helped them become better singing actors.
One way of talking about this is that I always think that what I do is create an outline of something and then start to add the details that really sparkle. But when the rehearsal process gets cut short, you don't really get that opportunity to go in later and add all of the detail that makes it special. That might be something that I take away from this. Try to bring more of that in from the beginning of the rehearsal process and be really present.
TB: How has this pandemic changed you? Or do you know yet?
AR: I'll be honest, I don't know yet. Most people in my position—people who are producing shows—don't know yet because we don't know how long this is going to last. For me, it is not going to do much, assuming by the end of the summer, everything is safe. Then everything is going to be fine for us.
For producing organizations that have had to cancel this show, have another coming in May. Then another coming up in June, this is forever altering the way they do business. They have to make sure they have a nest egg to pay everybody that they owe money to so they can handle such situations if they keep happening.
TB: How does that affect how you are teaching students and getting them ready for this career?
AR: I feel like I already (I hope I do!) teach them that they need to be resourceful. And that there are going to be these holes in their careers where they are not always employed. It definitely reminds me that that is something that I need to stick to and spend more time on.
Next year, I am very committed to spending more time working on building individuals rather than shows. Meaning that we are going to have more class time to prepare for auditions, interviews and to apply for programs or things that we don't usually talk about in school.
TB: Would you say that this has changed your outlook on your curriculum?
AR: We will see, but it could. It is definitely causing an effect on some of my students. At least two of them have lost their summer gigs already. I wouldn't be surprised if many of them lose their summer gigs. One of them has already lost an audition because of this. It might change the way that I think about the finality of getting a job. Maybe we need to keep our doors open more.
TB: So six weeks ago, how different was your life?
AR: The biggest challenge then was trying to figure out how to get the show up quickly. I was maybe irrationally worried about something that I didn't need to worry about. For a show, the time that it needs to come to fruition comes on its own, and it did. I didn't have to take any extraordinary measures to make it happen. But that was where my brain was at, "How is this going to happen?"
Now, my life is committed to figuring out how to teach lessons online. This is not something I ever thought I would do because I had to. I thought it might be something I could do to add to my workload, but this is new for everybody. Fortunately, there is a lot of talk in the industry about how to move forward with this, so I do not have to figure it out on my own.
TB: Will this pandemic affect the musical landscape in the future? If so, how will it?
AR: I think it will affect mine. The biggest way this affects me is the loss of my summer employment, which has huge ramifications for my tenure-track. I am not tenured yet, and so everything I do is meant to build my tenure portfolio. And for me, this was the big event. I guess it can't be anymore. So, I have to find something else to make up for this. I have to find some way for next summer to have more than one thing I hang my hat on.
TB: If you could teach me one thing about your experience in dealing with this, what would it be?
AR: I think it would be don't take any show for granted.
TB: What challenges do you foresee for your students in the musical community?
AR: The big loss for the students [in this production] was the actual loss of tech practice, such as getting into the theater, putting on the costumes, getting into makeup and hair, listening to the stage management, standing in place during cue-to-cue, the waiting, and holding, and figuring out how tech runs. I always tell students, "We don't do operas because they're fun. We do them so that you can learn how we do operas and put them together." Students learn a role in order to learn how to learn a role. They are entirely missing the whole process of how we make all this work we have done and put it on stage. For some of my students, that is not going to be a problem because they've done a lot of this. But for maybe half of my students, this is the first opera they've ever been in. They have not done any of this, and they don't know what it is like. That means they have lost what I see as a professional experience in the end.
TB: That has to be hard to watch. What would your advice be to the musical community right now?
AR: Pay your artists. It doesn't help anything, but it is what we have to do. We have to take the work that people are doing and, even if the show gets cancelled, support the artists that have committed their lives to do this. We are in a really bad situation in regards to the performance-based contract and force majeure. Singers, directors, and designers all have the same thing, where we are not traditionally paid until opening night or sometimes until the show closes. That is really hard on our community—for singers and actors alike.
TB: Do you have a suggestion as to what you would want to see happen with contracts moving forward?
AR: Traditionally, I like to see the payment of my contracts drawn out throughout the process. I am really lucky to have that right now for this particular gig. I am paid because of my professorship, but usually, there is a long waiting process in a professional gig. It would be a really interesting change to the industry to see if there was some way that we could help people with this.
TB: I have two more questions for you. First, what is one question I did not ask you that I should have?
AR: [Chuckle] Maybe for a comprehensive list of all the ways that this affects the individual. TB: So what would that be for you?
AR: There is the cancellation of the opera. Then having to take the whole semester and put it online. There is the cancellation of my summer job and the loss of a masterclass I was supposed to teach in April. Also, I was supposed to accompany a trip to Chicago to see the Ring Cycle with a bunch of OU students. We were also going to see the symphony and all things related to Wagner. That has completely gone away and is probably an experience I will never get back. As I mentioned, two of my students lost their summer gigs. Another student just had one of her auditions cancelled because of the company.
It is a large chunk of my artistic work that I have been completing all year. Because of the work, I do at my school; I cannot direct a lot of shows or see a lot of shows. This period that we are moving into was when I was supposed to be doing all of that. That is all gone now.
TB: Thank you for taking the time to share these thoughts with me. Lastly, what is your Netflix recommendation?
AR: Schitt's Creek, and then we have been watching the Metropolitan Opera streams. Last night was La Bohème, and tonight, if I can convince my husband, it is Il Trovatore.
TB: That sounds like a good plan to me! It has been a pleasure.
Ohio University
School of Music
Opera on the Green
Directed by Andrew Ryker
Addendum
March28,2021
From Mr. Ryker:
In June 2020, NATS published an article I wrote titled "Opera Education in the Time of COVID-19.” In this article, I attempted to spell out ideas about moving forward while still having a productive school year. The article came out three months into the pandemic but two months before the new school year. Following that publication, I very much followed the tenets of that article this school year; small operas, small casts, short rehearsals, and outdoor rehearsals. Did this work for Ohio University? I'm happy to report that regardless of our small town being on the top of Ohio's infection lists, we didn't have any illness among opera students during the school year. I'd love to claim credit for that success, but I suspect that this had as much to do with luck as it did anything else. I'm also grateful for a group of students who took the threat seriously and hunkered down.
But is that all? I can't help but wonder about the mental challenge this school year handed to so many students, a generation of young people having their first semesters of college or grad school at home, online, or perhaps wholly put on the back burner until next year. Tragically, so many students lost their normalcy. Many of us look back at college or our senior year of high school as the best time of our lives. And what about that group of kids that graduated from high school last spring and subsequently had their normal, well-deserved freshmen year robbed by COVID restrictions? I'm watching them carefully, and I hope everyone reading this will do the same.
What's next? What did we learn? What do we keep? What do we throw out? Fortunately, I gained a gorgeous outdoor venue on campus that I didn't even know existed until I had to find another performance venue. I'm definitely cashing in on outdoor rehearsals, which has given students more ownership over their performances. I'm happy to bid farewell to a school year spent on Zoom and live streams, but I'm also glad we did them, and I'm certain there's a well-thought-out place for them down the line. Along those lines, I hope that many apprentice programs around our country will consider making virtual auditions the norm and allowing those expensive in-person auditions to become the rare exception. And I hope that video auditions are here to stay for our own department as well. Personally, I think I've gained some patience and some understanding, as well as a more attentive pair of ears. I sincerely hope that we get back some of the students we lost along the way, and I'm happy but hesitant to say that above all, I'll be more prepared for the next one.
About Andrew Ryker
Andrew Ryker is the Director of Opera and Assistant Professor of Voice at Ohio University. He is the former Artistic Director of Boston Opera Collaborative and he has served on the directing staffs at New England Conservatory, Opera New Jersey and Des Moines Metro Opera. Ryker’s productions have been seen with the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, Intermezzo Chamber Opera, Eastern Nazarene College, Boston Opera Collaborative, Millikin University, MetroWest Opera, Drake University and New England Conservatory. Andrew was the 2006 recipient of the Goldovsky Directing Fellowship with the Harrower Opera Workshop in Atlanta and was a member of the Resident Artist Program at Opera North. Ryker has been featured in The Boston Globe, The EDGE and Classical Singer Magazine; his production of Benjamin Britten's Curlew River was named Boston's "Best Staged Opera of the Year" by the Boston Phoenix.
Ryker has been heard with the Boston Pops, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, La Musica Lirica, College Light Opera Company and the Des Moines Gay Men’s Chorus. He was baritone soloist for Trinity Church Boston's performances of Durufle's Requiem and Bach's Johannes Passion. Operatic roles include Papageno (The Magic Flute), Count Almaviva (Le Nozze di Figaro), Marco (Gianni Schicchi), Silvio (Pagliacci), Don Alfonso (Cosi fan tutte), John Brooke (Little Women), Strephon (Iolanthe), St. Brioche (The Merry Widow), Le Suritendent (Cendrillon) and Jenik in the US premiere of Dvorak's Kral a Uhlir. Andrew has sung in master classes with Pierre Vallet, Vinson Cole, Alan Held and Warren Jones and has been featured on the St. John's Concert Series as well as various gala performances throughout the Marché region of Italy.
Ryker is also very active in musical theatre and has a diverse background as a performer, director and educator. Recent highlights include the title role in Andrew Lippa's I am Harvey Milk, Leo Frank in Jason Robert Brown's Parade and a solo cabaret at Noce Jazz Club. He’s performed regionally in Titanic, The Scarlet Pimpernel, 42nd Street, Kismet, South Pacific, Brigadoon and On the 20th Century with Alice Ripley. Andrew has staged productions of Cabaret, Into the Woods, West Side Story, Candide, Side by Side by Sondheim and Songs for a New World. Music directing credits include Ragtime, The Wild Party, Jesus Christ Superstar, Spring Awakening, Fiorello, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, Rock of Ages and 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Andrew’s 2015 production of South Pacific won Best Musical at the Cloris Leachman Excellence in Theatre Arts Awards.
Andrew began work with Des Moines Metro Opera in 2010 and has staged touring productions of The Elixir of Love, Cenerentola and The Barber of Seville as well as directing for their nationally recognized Apprentice Artist Program. Ryker previously taught at Drake University and New England Conservatory. He’s an active adjudicator and clinician who has judged for the National Opera Association and he continues to serve as an advisor for the Entrepreneurial Musicianship Program at New England Conservatory. Andrew’s students have been accepted into many of the premiere graduate and young artist programs in the US including Sarasota Opera, Cincinnati, Ash Lawn and Sante Fe Opera. An active participant in the National Association of Teachers of Singing, Ryker has had over 50 winners in regional and state NATS competitions as well as multiple award winners in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.
