We were lucky to catch up with Adam Bryan recently and have shared our conversation below.

Adam, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?

My parents raised me in a house where I was always encouraged to express myself creatively, and art was something that was celebrated. Above all though, the thing my parents did right was teach me that hard work and patience are attributes that would take me far in life. They taught me early that in order to achieve great things that I needed to work diligently to accomplish my goals. A solid work ethic was something that was valued very highly, and that work ethic is something that has helped me to succeed professionally, creatively, and personally. Keeping your focus, even through trials and tribulations, is something that I was not only taught but witnessed my parents doing often. The ability to adapt, overcome and keep pushing was a lesson that I find myself referring back to often both on and off the stage. I owe all my success to the values and principles my parents instilled in me very early on.

Adam, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I have been creating and working in theatre professionally for over 20 years. I was in my first play around the age of 8 and spent the first part of my career onstage as an actor. I graduated from California University of Pennsylvania with a degree in theatre, primary focus on performing. After college I took a summer outdoor theatre job at Tecumseh in Chillicothe Ohio, and from there went on to get hired at Theatre West Virginia for their educational tours. While at TWV I performed a variety of shows at elementary and middle schools across the great state of West Virginia, in addition to performing in their summer outdoor shows as well. Theatre West Virginia also had an academy where they offered classes in the performing arts to local youth. I started teaching acting classes and thus started a transition of sorts into teaching theatre to young artists. It was teaching that brought me to my current job in St. Albans at the Alban Arts Center. Teaching an acting class at the newly formed Alban Arts Center in the Historic Alban Theater is what first brought me to my current home. After meeting with the current mayor of St. Albans and sharing our visions for how the arts can grow and enhance a community, I was offered the job of Director/Manager and now almost 14 years later I haven’t looked back once. The Alban Arts Center now produces 6-7 theatrical productions every year, employs dozens of theatrical artists throughout the year, offers a premier venue for musicians, performers, and a variety of performances and community events. I’m most proud of the fact that the Alban Arts Center is now a staple and a highlight of the City of St. Albans. The community at large is supportive of the work we do and sees the benefit that art can bring to a community.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

In 2020 when the worldwide Covid Pandemic struck businesses all over were shutting their doors, and no business was hit harder than live performance venues. Theatres across the globe stopped creating because there was no way to put a group of people in the same room to experience what they were creating. As a small arts organization we knew very quickly that if we didn’t figure out a way to adapt it very likely could be the end for us, and we very possibly would never be able to open our doors again. So after some discussion with some of our board members and other creatives in our network we decided very quickly that in order to keep creating theatre we were going to have to give access to our audiences digitally somehow. So I went to what I like to call YouTube School and learned everything I could about live streaming. We knew we didn’t want to record productions and edit them into films because the main thing that makes live theatre so great is the fact that it’s alive and living in front of an audience. So we wanted to keep as much of that live feel as we possibly could. While other theatres lost shows, some lost entire seasons, we didn’t miss a single show. We had to change a few, but we didn’t miss one production slot. This new way of presenting shows made our productions available to new audiences some as far away as California and Texas, and we even had a friend of cast member stream the show in Zimbabwe. As actors and crew must do during a live show when things go wrong, adapt, overcome, and the show must go on was our mantra and we came out the other side stronger and more knowledgeable because of it.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

I think non-creatives sometimes struggle to understand how artists evaluate their work and even how they work to begin with at times. Non-creatives are used to evaluating things in their work as accomplished correctly, accomplished promptly, answered correctly or incorrectly etc. Creatives create and judge their work with an entirely different set of standards and rules. We evaluate our work on how it made someone feel, what it made someone think, and even at times what it made someone do. There are principles to follow but in the end there is really no right or wrong answer, and the process you use to create often differs drastically from one artist to another even if their end product is similar. Even though most creatives often have deadlines to meet, I find most of them don’t like them and would rather just let the creative juices flow as they naturally do. More often than not especially in theatre I find that more gets accomplished during tech week than at any other time during the rehearsal process, as I think most creatives feel a bit more creative with a bit of time crunch looming over their heads. Now I know that’s not true for everyone, but as I said earlier the process in which we achieve our goals often differs drastically between artists. I think this non black and white way of approaching our work is one of the main things that separate us. One of my favorite things to teach my kids in acting class is that there are no wrong answers when making acting choices, the only wrong choice is no choice. I think that is a hard concept for kids and maybe even more difficult for adults, but once they realize that the goal of what we’re trying to do is just to create, and not be right or wrong things really open up and the fun begins.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.albanartscenter.com
• Instagram: alban_arts_center
• Facebook: Alban Arts Center

Image Credits
All photos belong to myself or the Alban Arts Center