Press Release

November 26, 2015 | By Ohio Wesleyan University

Ohio Wesleyan Graduate Takes One-Man Show to New York Stage

Huffington Post Calls Play by Ryan Haddad ’15 ‘Stirring…Heartrending…Hilarious’

As an Ohio Wesleyan University student, Ryan Haddad ’15 took part in a performance art workshop that helped lay the groundwork for the one-man show he performed in New York City this month.

In a Huffington Post article about Haddad’s play, “Hi, Are You Single?”, writer Christina Paschyn says, “It is a stirring work of theater, replete with both heartrending and deliberately hilarious moments. It is a show that should and needs to be seen.”

Haddad says he learned about performance art – and the potential to combine his passions for acting, writing, and directing – while attending a weeklong OWU theatre workshop with visiting professional artist Tim Miller.

“I didn’t know what performance art was when I started here,” says Haddad, a theatre and creative writing double-major. Afterward, he was encouraged by theatre professor Ed Kahn to apply for a university-funded Student Individualized Project (SIP) grant to go to New York to attend another workshop with Miller.

It was there that he began work on “Hi, Are You Single?” The play deals with Haddad’s experiences in the dating world.

“I’m a gay man with cerebral palsy. Those are the specifics of my story,” he says. “But overall the show is an exploration of how we see ourselves and how we see each other, and that’s totally universal.”

Read the complete Huffington Post article, “Show Tackles Dating While Gay and Disabled.” Learn more about Ohio Wesleyan’s theatre major and creative writing major.