Conrad Ricamora, a 2012 graduate of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Master of Fine Arts acting program, is continuing to see success on stage taking his talents from Big Orange country to the Big Apple. He’s currently playing the sneaker-clad lead role of Seymour Krelborn in a revival of Little Shop of Horrors at the Westside Theatre in New York City through May 15.
In a recent interview before starting his run as Seymour, Ricamora said, “The MFA program at UT in acting was the absolute best thing that has happened to my career. I had been working as an actor before going to grad school and was stuck, and the program allowed me to access this whole other level of depth and specificity in my work.”
Ricamora echoed these sentiments in Torchbearer magazine. “I grew so much here [at UT] through the training,” he said. “It’s like an artistic home to me. So much of my life has changed since then. On a daily basis, working in the studios creates the sense of family. Everyone here has seen me at my best and worst and everywhere in between.”
Since his time in Knoxville, Ricamora has played Ninoy Aquino in David Byrne’s Here Lies Love in New York City and the young lover Lun Tha in The King and I for 400 shows on Broadway, created the role of Oliver Hampton in the Shonda Rhimes’s ABC series How to Get Away with Murder, and starred as Xue Xing in the premiere of David Henry Hwang’s Soft Power in Los Angeles.
In May 2020, he also found time to give the virtual commencement address to UT’s College of Arts and Sciences. This summer Ricamora fans will get to see him in the movie Fire Island, a romantic comedy about two friends who go on a weeklong vacation, featuring Bowen Yang and Margaret Cho.
CONTACT:
Brooks Clark (nclark5@utk.edu, 865-974-5471)