The Many Facets of
Bryan Zocher How his eclectic career brought him to EFA by
Theresa Coty O’Neil
photography by
ERIK HOLLADAY
B
y anyone’s account, Bryan Zocher is a man who has worn and still wears many hats. The actor, playwright, educator and Wausau, Wis., native is now at the helm of the Kalamazoo Regional Educational Service Agency’s Education for the Arts program after a career that spanned the gamut of the performing-arts world and brought him to what he describes as “the perfect place.” “No matter if I worked as a playwright, director or producer, I’ve always been interested in developing art- and community-based projects through building unique coalitions,” says Zocher who assumed the EFA post in March 2012. “When I moved to Kalamazoo (26 years ago) and saw the wealth of arts institutions, the community’s DNA of creativity and innovation, and the depth of the philanthropic resources, I called a buddy from college and said, ‘I think I’ve found the perfect place to be an entrepreneurial artist.’” Zocher began his ecletic arts career after graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater’s theater performance program. His post-college work took him from New York City to Pennsylvania to Seattle to the Dakotas before he was lured to Kalamazoo by a posting for a master actor-scriptwriter position with the then newly formed Mad Hatters Educational Theater. It was the beginning of a long career in Southwest Michigan’s arts community.
Abundant opportunities For Zocher, the road from actor, director and playwright to administrator has been paved with opportunities. “In the 1990s, between the great economy and a willingness for organizations to take a risk on an energetic go-getter, I was able to get my foot in the door as a teaching artist and program developer with school districts, arts councils and community colleges,” he says. “I’d walk through the door and say, ‘Here’s my vision. Here’s my experience. Here’s where we can get the money, and, by the way, I’ll even write the grant.’” That is, if the grants weren’t already in place, as they were with his first Kalamazoo job. As the master actor-scriptwriter with the Mad Hatters, an organization whose mission was to promote positive attitudes toward people with special needs and disabilities, Zocher visited schools, corporations and retreats, using short dramas in which he would assume the roles of up to 10 characters, from a 5-year-old deaf boy to a truck driver paralyzed in a car accident. Through a
32 | Encore SUMMER 2014