After finishing his MFA in Acting, Christopher Ryan worked as an educator, actor and dancer in the Orlando, FL market before moving to Germany, in 2008. Some highlights of Christopher’s 11 years in Europe were: directing The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged for the Rover Rep theatre in Hamburg, touring the continent playing roles like: Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors, Tom in The Glass Menagerie, and Anthony in Sweeney Todd, playing Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing in German, choreographing the original German language production of Bridges of Madison County, and playing dream roles, like: Emcee in Cabaret, Caiaphas and Herod in Jesus Christ Superstar, Mark in RENT, and the title character in Jekyll & Hyde. Christopher is grateful for the past two years which they spent as a faculty member at NKU School of the Arts! Some of their favorite creative projects, while at NKU, were choreographing Peter and the Starcatcher, directing The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and creating original dances for the yearly dance concerts. At NKU, Christopher taught Dance and Theatre Performance Ensemble, a devised dance theatre course, Musical Theatre Dance, II, a survey of styles in musical theatre dance, Life as an Artist, a new course they created which addressed issues of self-worth, mental health, self-care, wellness, self-advocacy, and goal and boundary setting, for artists, as well as Dance Appreciation, and Theatre Appreciation.
During the summer of 2024, Christopher served as a Panelist contributing to the selection of choreographers for the third installment of the Synergy Dance Series in the greater Cincinnati, OH area. He performed for the third consecutive year in OUTLoud with Opera Tampa, and for the second consecutive year as a guest soloist with the Lobby Lounge Cabaret Series at the Sharon L. Morse Performing Arts Center. He also taught for the CCM Musical Theatre Workshop and for Mutual Dance’s summer study program.