Dominic

Meet the music man who is constantly on the move, mostly riding a motorcycle! I had the pleasure of working with Dominic at GPOAT over the summer. Read this interview to find out a bit about his life.

Can you tell me a bit about who you are and what you do? My name is Dominic Rye and I am an actor. I mostly work in stage, but have done some voice- over and radio. I have ambitions to work in screen also but I usually have to take the work I get.

What brought you to Chester this summer? I was in Chester from April until August because I was cast in the ‘Made by Storyhouse’ Rep company. We put on one play in the Storyhouse and three in the Grosvenor Park Outdoor Theatre.

Which was your favourite GPOAT play and why? Every play contains a series of moments that you look forward to. The best ones are where the moments are so close together you swing from one to the next (like Tarzan swinging through the forest). For me, the show with the most moments was Much Ado. I looked forward to the songs in the pre-show, my jazzy solo number, the drunken knock-about humour, calling Dogberry an ass and the Mambo closing song.

When you go to the theatre, rather than being on-stage yourself, what kind of things do you choose to see? I try to go to the theatre a lot. I see a wide variety of genres at a wide variety of venues - high budget commercial work on the West End, subsidised off West End venues like the Young Vic and Royal Court and the tiny fringe venues in the back rooms of pubs etc. I will always try and catch friends in shows as a mark of support. The stuff I enjoy most is when a good story is being told by a team that values the work.

It seems like you play every instrument going! Where did you learn to play these instruments? I learnt the piano as a child, everything else is self-taught. The piano is an excellent base instrument to learn - it teaches you everything there is to know about music theory. I’ve picked up the other instruments along the way, prompted either by curiosity or necessity (when a part has required me to play something new).

What do you believe and how does your faith influence your life? Do you find it influences your work and, if so, how? I am a practising Christian. I have believed the message of Christ for myself since the age of 17 or 18, but at that stage I didn’t allow it to influence my life. It wasn’t until I was about 22 that things started to change and I worked on being distinct as a result of my beliefs. My hesitance was a combination being reluctant to be too counter-cultural and invite opposition, and being too selfish to allow various corners of my life to be turned over into God’s jurisdiction. The changes (which have been incremental) have largely come about at points of crisis - where my own plans have lead to nowhere in particular, or even ended up taking me to harmful places.

Now, there are still some areas of my life where I’m learning to relinquish control, but I have accepted that work, career and money are all out of my hands. I pray for opportunities to arise, before every audition, and before accepting any job for provision and guidance. I give away a percentage of everything I earn as a mark of gratitude to God and a statement of faith. However large or small my monthly earnings are, God gets his share first in the same way that my agent takes their commission - the idea being that without either of them, I wouldn’t have any work or earnings in the first place.

Show-business is one of those industries that often has you living in different places for short periods of time. How do you find this? Where are some of the places you've lived and what have you liked about them? There is always something positive to find in living in different places, but I think it requires a certain mindset. At home I live quite an ordered life - my flat is tidy and organised, because I like to be efficient. When living in someone else home however, I don’t get uptight when people have a different way of living. I think it’s a choice. You learn to adapt and to be a good house-guest/lodger and the reward for that is getting to meet loads of new people and see parts of the country (even the world) that you would otherwise have missed.

I’ve only been out of drama school for three years and I’ve spent time living in Oxford, Cambridge, Ipswich, Guildford, Derby, Cardiff, and Chester. On longer jobs, you get time to explore and try new things, and share things you are passionate about with new people.

For example, I am a keen motorcyclist (after being introduced to it by an actor I worked with a few years ago) and everyone I work with gets an invitation to try out riding pillion. In Chester, one of the other actors was a climbing enthusiast and invited me to try out an indoor climbing centre in Queensferry. I’m now hooked on that and have been to one close to my flat in London. If you are of a mind to say yes to these invitations, you can constantly broaden your horizons.

What do you like to do when you're not working? I’m never very good at ‘resting’. I always fill up my time with spending time with friends. (In London I’ll usually invite people to the theatre to get in socialising and professional research all in one.) I’ll also go visiting friends who live all over the country, who I don’t really get to see when I’m working unless I am lucky enough to get a job close enough to them to spend one of my days off there.

I also volunteer on a Sunday playing the piano at church - it keeps my musical skills sharp and also is a way of using a gift God has given me to praise Him - paying it back in a way... If I am around on a Wednesday and/or Friday I volunteer at a homeless shelter. This is as a way of recognising how fortunate I am to have the life that I enjoy, and trying to improve the lives of people who don’t enjoy the same privilege. Again, it is a way to give back to God the time he allows me, to use my body and mind to serve Him by taking care of ‘His lambs’.

For you, what is one of the best things about theatre? I think Theatre is fundamentally about story telling. A medium which Jesus Himself used to encourage people to look at themselves and draw conclusions about morality and spirituality etc. It is an expression of life that is uniquely human but also universal across all cultures and times. I see myself as having a tiny part in the continuity of this essential act of humanity, receiving the stories of the last generation, and telling them to the next.

It also comes with the above-mentioned advantages of seeing the country, meeting loads of other people, trying new things. I don’t know if I’ll always be an actor but I will always look back fondly on this season of my life.