Renaissance Man

By Patricia Ho

Senior theater and English major Ryan Auffenberg is a performer.

Transforming the internal to external is a process he is familiar with, both as an actor and as a musician. "Love's Labour's Lost," which opens Nov. 15, will be Auffenberg's fifth main stage play at Santa Clara. On this sunny Saturday afternoon, he can be found inside Mayer Theater preparing for his role as Costard, the clown figure of "Lost."

Mayer Theater's Green Room is almost like another world, cloistered away backstage through a maze of hallways and doors. The cast and crew of "Lost" spend their interim periods in here while onstage, rehearsals are in progress.

Bottles of water and assorted sandwiches scattered about lace the air with the scent of cured meat and condiments. An intercom system relays the sounds from onstage and alerts actors on break to their cues.

"There's a feeling that you get when you're connecting with an audience," said Auffenberg during a break. "Acting really is like ministering to a group of people, because it's a reflection on ideals in society and a projection of how we would like things to be. I share my personal experience with a group of people in the hopes that I can positively affect them,"

Auffenberg's passion for acting can be traced back to elementary school. As a hyperactive third-grader, his teacher bribed him with the promise of a part in "The Emperor's New Clothes" in an effort to get him to behave.

Since getting off to an auspicious start as the emperor, Auffenberg has moved on to play more key parts in his college career, excelling particularly in comic roles such as the character of Puck in "Midsummer Night's Dream" his sophomore year.

He has also had experience working at a Shakespeare company in Santa Cruz and is part of an improv troupe on campus.

"He's got great instincts. He is very in his body," said "Lost" director and theater professor Aldo Billingslea. "He's got a great intellect and he works hard. He is an actor that takes the art seriously and is committed to it and how his own gifts might be used to mesh with the art to actually say something,

"He is not a person that just wants to go out there and sing a song and look good on stage for his own ego. He knows that in doing so, in the right play, with the right piece, he will say something that will speak directly to the emotions and heart of somebody in the audience and may be able to effect change in the world by it," said Billingslea. "That's the difference between the craft and the art. He's a young artist."

Frederick Tollini, S.J., a theater professor who has directed Auffenberg before, agrees.

"He makes excellent choices. How you deliver a line, how you move your hand. These things are very natural for him," Tollini said. "He's what we call a triple threat - he sings, he dances and he also acts."

Auffenberg credits Santa Clara for much of his development as an actor and as a person.

"The theater professors have really stressed educating the individual as a socially conscious being, not just an actor," he enthuses. "There is a heavy commitment towards nurturing a well-rounded individual with a strong background in other disciplines,"

Rehearsals here are a precious commodity. [Billingslea] cancelled our rehearsals one night so we could go hear this guy speak. I was really impressed by that," Auffenberg continued, recalling an experience he had while preparing for "Midsummer."

In addition to being an actor, Auffenberg plays the guitar, mandolin and harmonica and has played many acoustic sets on campus.

"He has a lot of fun on stage," said senior Elissa Stebbins, a theater and English major who met Auffenberg in a freshman acting class. "A lot of people will get on stage, just do their thing and then get off the stage. But he'll be like 'This song is for this person.' Or people will yell out the songs they want and he'll say 'Alright. I already played that one, but I'll play it again.'"

The songs Auffenberg plays are also ones he has written, something he started doing in college. "If I'm performing Shakespeare, I could really suck at performing Shakespeare, but at the end of the day it's still Shakespeare," he said, explaining the added dimension involved with performing his own music. "It can be really stressful, but the potential is unlimited. You can do whatever you want."

Despite being a veteran performer, Auffenberg is not immune to nerves.

"When I get nervous, it usually lasts for about five minutes. After that, it pretty much calms itself down," he said. "The experience of getting up there, being in front of people and feeding off of the audience's energy really helps."

Auffenberg is reluctant to choose whether he prefers acting or music. "I love them both - it would be like choosing kids probably. They fulfill two separate parts of my personality."

But as for the near future, Auffenberg would like to focus on building up his music portfolio.

"As soon as I'm done with the play, I plan to go into the studio and do a professionally produced record," he said.

Auffenberg anticipates making a living off of playing music. "It's really scary, but that would be my top priority," he said.

"The number one thing that I hope in being a musician is that people can find points of relation in my music, he said. "I think music has a really transcendent power. If anybody listens to the stuff I write, if they can relate to and it moves them, I think that would be amazing."