Rachel Silver Bowron

Life Of Ryan | Director, playwright, educator, musical enthusiast, father of talented daughters: few people enriched Edmonton theatre culture more than Tim Ryan.

I first met Tim Ryan when I was assigned to interview him about Me and My Girl, which he was directing at Grant MacEwan. Like so many other shows he mounted at that school, it was a joyful production of a musical that probably never would have been staged in Edmonton if it wasn’t for him. And like so many other interviews I would have with him over the years, he was bubbling over with enthusiasm for the project — both for the young cast (which included Vanessa Sabourin, Dave Stone, and Lisa Orth, all clearly bursting with talent) and simply for the whole wonderfully exhausting prospect of getting another musical off the ground. He was a sweetheart.

Tim Ryan died last Thursday night at the age of 62 of congestive heart failure complicated by H1N1, and he leaves behind a staggering legacy of hundreds of shows — some of them at Grant MacEwan, where he ran the theatre arts department, some of them productions of his professional company Leave It to Jane, plus a whole bunch of Fringe shows, benefits, and cabarets. I can’t think of too many people who loved putting on theatre to the extent that Ryan did. Even low budgets didn’t faze him — the sets of many Leave It to Jane shows consisted of nothing more than a few wooden boxes.

As a theatregoer, I cherished the way Ryan made it his mandate to stage as many rare and off-the-beaten-path musicals as he could: Floyd Collins, Violet, The Green Heart, many more. He’d stage Stephen Sondheim flops like Merrily We Roll Along and Anyone Can Whistle, knowing that no one else would bother — or give them as much loving attention. He probably had a list of dozens more that now, sadly, he’ll never get around to. And as a journalist, I always looked forward to talking to him — his enthusiasm (and his breezy, encyclopedic knowledge of theatre history) made each article a snap to write.

A celebration of Ryan’s hugely productive life will take place Friday, Nov. 13 at 4 p.m. in the John L. Haar Theatre at Grant MacEwan. All are invited. There will undoubtedly be a lot of singing.