Ricardo Redd: Heading to Broadway
It took Ricardo Redd a few years to find his passion at Barry University, a small private Catholic institution in Miami Shores, Florida. He first declared a broadcasting communications major, then switched to music, then English until he finally settled on theater arts. “I love freedom,” he explains, “music isn’t free at all — it’s like math. But theater allows you to do what you want; it’s not cut and dried.”
Ricardo is thriving in the world of university theater, with parts in such musicals as “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” and “Urinetown, the Musical.” This summer he joins the cast of “The Brand New Kid” – a musical based on a children’s book by Katie Couric – in Miami, West Palm Beach and Orlando. It is the debut of Ricardo Redd as a professional actor.
He is bubbly on the phone, often on the verge of laughter, even when he relates the unpleasant aspects of his life. Ricardo grew up in South Carolina with his grandparents, explaining that he comes from a “dysfunctional family.” He went into foster care at the age of 15. “It was fine,” he says, “I never lived in poverty, but it was the lack of love and support that was hard.”
The summer of his senior year of high school, Ricardo auditioned for “American Idol.” He took a bus to Atlanta where he lined up outside in the rain for eight hours. The producers told him he had a great voice, but didn’t have the “image or the height” they were looking for. Within a few months, he was ensconced at Barry University, casting about for a major that would feed his soul.
“I’m very determined, and I am very optimistic,” says the young man who hopes to end up either on Broadway or in Hollywood someday. And yet he acknowledges that not everything is coming up roses. “I have lots of friends who have been my family. But I don’t have a family to go home to at Christmas or holidays. It’s been lonely. I would love to have parents to go home to.”