Want to meet one of your neighbors? How about Ryan Childers? He lives on 45th St down near Latona. By day, he’s a preschool teacher. By night, he’s Mellersh Wilton, an uptight and businesslike British gentleman following his wife to a villa in Italy.
At least that’s the character he’s playing in Taproot Theater’s production of Enchanted April.
Ryan, who was born in Port Angeles but moved to Seattle 6 years ago (and to Wallingford 2 years ago), has been acting since he was just a wee one. He earned both his BA and MA in acting and teaches acting at the Kid Stage of the Village Theater.
If you’re a regular at Taproot, you’ve probably already seen him in Big River, Susan and God, or maybe Around the World in 80 Days. He says he’s worked with other companies, but Taproot in particular, has become a home for him: “I’ve never happier working with a theater. They give such a warm welcome, you’re never considered ‘hired help'”.
About acting, Ryan had this say:
I never want something for just the final product. It’s the journey, the process, the learning, the trying, the failing, the succeeding. At the end there’s an end product, but you know you went through blood sweat and tears to get there. What I teach young actors is that if you love acting, if you do it right, you can take that one perosn in the audience who has kids on drugs, marriage problems, they don’t like what they have in their life, if we do our job right, we can take them away from that for a few hours. And that’s a worthwhile thing.
If you’re interested in catching Ryan in Enchanted April, you’d best get on it, as it runs Wednesdays through Saturdays through Oct 24th. Call their box office at 206.781.9707 for tickets. Unsure, check out the reviews in the Seattle Times, Phinneywood and the Seattle PostGlobe.