Still 'Growing Into My Beard'

A solo show: theatre / music / movement / storytelling / ginger... (3 min read)

Growing Into My Beard synopsis?

'Growing Into My Beard' is one ginger's personal quest to obtain TRUE LOVE --the kind that can ALWAYS be found in the movies starring Drew Barrymore (love you drew)... By way of original songs, dramatically told personal anecdotes and justified farcical movement, Bay weaves together a coming-of-age tale that is romantically nostalgic, profoundly authentic and above all HOPEFUL.

"Don’t be fooled by the title – Bryan sports a fresh face. And yet, as the performance closes, it makes perfect sense..."

-Otis Robinson (The Culture Vulture)
read the full review here

~The Journey~

the short version:

In April 2015, after winning the whacky and whimsical East Village game-show Cabaret Showdown, I received the gift of an hour-long slot in a theatre to do ANYTHING that my wee ginger heart desired; Almost immediately I knew what that anything was: I wanted to (imagine Liza Minelli saying these next few words) write and perform my own solo show! I had one month.

My friend and collaborator Artem Yatsunov jumped on board as my director and helped me to make my dream a reality. One month later we successfully produced the first version of GIMB (Under St. Marks Theatre, East Village NYC). The show we put on that stage was genuine, random and YES it lacked a clear central story but DAMMIT it had heart and there was absolutely something right about it.

With Artem continuing as my director AND donning the producer hat as well, we would go on to take this still-growing beast to the Minnesota Fringe and Philly Fringe Festivals (summer 2015), as well as the One Catches Light Festival (Bushwick) and the Proud AF Storytelling Festival at the Tank NYC (Manhattan) the following year.

Then came the opportunity to perform GIMB at Interplay Theatre (Leeds, UK) in December of 2016. Artem was in NYC and was unavailable so Claire-Marie Seddon (a dear friend and classmate) stepped in to direct this VERY SPECIAL version of the piece.

What made this performance SO EXTRA? Well, there in the audience sat one person in particular who unknowingly was my guest of honor.

As the performance came to a close, there in this repurposed church space in Armley, MUCH to his surprise and everyone else's, I brought him on stage and asked him to marry me.

he said yes. #YAS

..... /////......
As you can guess, the story does not end there. From that performance I have gone on to take a revised version of GIMB to my home state in CO (July 2017) and back again to Interplay Theatre (March 2018).

The story continues on in this solo show I call Growing Into My Beard --An evolving tale that I believe is a story about discovering love and about discovering who it is you are and how you want to share yourself with the world!

G.I.M.B - Past Performances