Virginia Stage Company is thrilled to welcome our new Managing Director, Jeff Ryder! Jeff joins VSC after nine years in various finance, fundraising, and management positions at Cleveland Play House. He joined the VSC team on March 28th!
We got to sit down with Jeff, during his very busy first week to ask some ‘top-tier’ important questions about him and his move to Virginia. Please stop and say hi to Jeff when you see him at the Wells Theatre or out in the community!
Marketing Associate: How would you describe your position at VSC to someone who may not be familiar with the title or a day to day in your life here?
Jeff Ryder: The Managing Director partners with the Artistic Director to support a strong organization that fosters an environment where artists can do their best work. Specifically, I focus on financial management, marketing, sales, human resources, fundraising, supporting our Board of Trustees, and all the other nuts and bolts that make a nonprofit organization run. All of this is in support of the art that Virginia Stage Company creates for the Hampton Roads community.
MA: Can you tell us a little bit about your background? What got you started in theatre and led you to here?
JR: So I’ve had a little bit of a winding path in the theatre. A lot of people start as actors and find their way to other areas of our business. That was NOT my journey. I started working in props design in High School and then grew into Stage Management. I majored in Stage Management at Tufts University and then worked for about a year and a half as a Stage Manager before I decided that I wanted to pursue other areas of theatre management. The Cleveland Play House Apprentice Program offered me the perfect opportunity to learn about finance and human resources, and led to me spending almost 9 years there working in every one of the departments that I now manage.
MA: How did you come to work for Virginia Stage Company?
JR: It was a really attractive opportunity to be a Managing Director at such a great organization that is well positioned to come out of the pandemic and be successful. This theatre is also very artistically familiar to me. VSC programs plays and theatre education programs that are interesting, thought provoking, and boundary pushing, and that ultimately build a stronger, more connected community. It is incredibly rewarding to support this kind of work.
MA: What's the biggest thing you are excited to have influence or impact on while working for Virginia Stage?
JR: I hope to have an influence on making Virginia Stage Company an integral part of our community. I mean that in a lot of ways. Welcoming the ENTIRE Hampton Roads Community to authentically enjoy our space, but also looking out at how we can make Hampton Roads a better place to live in a broad sense. VSC is already doing this work, but I look forward to helping it continue to advance.
MA: Before VSC, what was the most unusual or interesting job you've ever worked on?
JR: I did all kinds of unusual things at Cleveland Play House, but I once spent two summers managing a snack bar at a swimming pool. It was a real trial by fire experience in customer service. Many complaints came my way that were well beyond my purview…everything from ‘Can I get a different kind of iced tea’ to ‘Can you fix this maintenance problem with the pool’. At the time, I didn’t realize what good training this was for customer service positions that I would later hold in theatre.
MA: Where have you lived, and what is the most fun place to visit at those places?
JR: I’m from Iowa originally, went to college in Boston, spent some time in the Berkshires and Cincinnati as a Stage Manager, and then was in Cleveland for about 9 years working at Cleveland Play House. Boston is a great city with a wonderful connection to American History, but the place I most look forward to returning to visit is Cleveland. I don’t think it is well enough known that Cleveland is a great city for arts and culture. It has many theatres, a world-class orchestra, great museums, and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. I also look forward to going back to visit the West Side Market.
MA: When you first started here at VSC, what productions or projects in this current season were you the most excited to be a part of?
JR: I was really interested in The Thanksgiving Play when I was interviewing for this position, but the thing that made me feel like this could be my next artistic home was when I heard VSC was doing Every Brilliant Thing….this made me feel like this was a place that shared some of my values and would also feel artistically familiar. VSC’s programming sparks important conversations for our community in a wide variety of topics. I am happy to be a part of that.
MA: If you won the lottery, what would be the first thing you'd buy?
JR: That is a tricky question. When I was in elementary school, I had to do that assignment of ‘what would you do if you had a million dollars?’ so I made a proposal to build a sanctuary for Orangutans. I know now that everything I wanted to do might take more than a million dollars…but maybe winning the lottery would be a good start.
MA: Are you a dog or a cat person?
JR: A dog person *answered confidently* I have a siberian husky named Togo.
MA: Most obscure random fact you know off the top of your head?
JR: The weirdest fact I know is that Barbara Walters, Anne Frank, and Martin Luther King Jr. were all born in the same year.