Arlington classmates reunite after 30 years, bring stage production to Fort Worth

Turns out Arlington is not that far from New York City after all.

When former Shackleford Junior High classmates Ryan Brown and Jennifer Bangs were reunited on Facebook after three decades, it sparked more than memories. It resulted in an entirely new theatrical project for the two Arlington Lamar High graduates and show business veterans.

Their new company, Sweet Apple Productions, will be presenting legendary playwright David Mamet’s “Oleanna” at Stage West Thursday, March 30 through Sunday, April 2. Brown is starring in the two-person show alongside Bethany Soder with Bangs directing.

The show is about the power struggle between a college student (Soder) and the professor (Brown) she has accused of sexual harassment.

Brown, the son of New York Times bestselling author Sandra Brown and award-winning documentarian Michael Brown, first met Bangs in 1990 when he was 14 and she was 12. They shared the stage as Hugo and Kim, the main characters in the musical “Bye Bye Birdie.” It would be three years later before they performed together again at Lamar in “Once Upon a Mattress.”

“It was a memorable production for us as we played the young ingénues in love, so it’s fun for us to look back on that and laugh,” Brown said of their initial show together. “It’s a musical, of course, and luckily for the audience, I played the one principal role without a singing solo. Jennifer is definitely the singer between us, and she is brilliant.”

Brown added with a laugh that he still didn’t sing in their Lamar reunion production.

“I played a mute. That remains my last appearance in a musical, although I love them,” he said.

Reuniting

Life took them in different directions. Brown studied film and drama at the University of Oklahoma and Bangs studied at New York University. They each married and started families, and while their paths crisscrossed a couple of times between living in New York and Los Angeles, they didn’t actually reconnect until 2019 in New York.

“Facebook suggested we be friends one day and Ryan saw on Facebook that I was in New York, and so he reached out. Our starting of the production company was a slow evolution,” Bangs said. “I have a podcast that I host and Ryan suggested one day during COVID that I should start filming my episodes. So I did one, and at the end credits, we just threw up Sweet Apple Productions.

“We made a few more videos, one was a music video of a friend’s song we shot in the middle of Times Square, and every time we did something we’d throw up the name on the screen credits. Then when we both ended back in DFW we officially started the production company.”

Sweet Apple, by the way, is the name of the town in “Bye Bye Birdie.”

With work reduced to a bare minimum due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Brown and Bangs found themselves with little to do and lots to express. So, the idea came to them to start collaborating more artistically, and in 2021 Sweet Apple Productions became official.

“We had to start creating our own projects — for our sanity as much as anything else,” Brown said.

Ryan’s career includes stints on a couple of soap operas, “The Guiding Light” from 1998-2001 and “The Young and the Restless” from 2002-03. He’s also acted in a number of films and even followed in his mother’s footsteps by publishing the novel “Play Dead” in 2010.

“I’d say the thing I learned the most from my mother’s success and popularity as a fiction novelist is simply the work and discipline it took — and continues to take — in achieving it. I’ve truly never known a harder worker. She really does work seven days a week, usually seven or eight hours a day, during those months of the year that she is working on her books,” Brown said. “I think both of my parents instilled in me a sense of discipline in work. I’m grateful to have come from parents who work in creative fields, and were therefore always supportive in my chosen fields of study and work.”

Bangs has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from NYU and her numerous credits include the popular podcast “She Bangs She Bangs.” She was also the original female singer in the cover band Coverband. She also appeared in the movie “Speech and Debate” with Kal Penn and Janeane Garofalo.

Returning to Texas

Given the challenging circumstances for artists in New York amid COVID, the two decided to return to their roots, so they came home. Also, Brown’s son, Dylan, deciding to study aviation at the University of Oklahoma, played a part in the decision.

“With him moving to this part of the country, and the fact that my parents and sister are all still in DFW, I just thought it would be a good time to return to the area,” Brown said. “I’m so thrilled to be living in Fort Worth, walking distance from the Cultural District. It’s such a vibrant, creative and artistic town. I spent well over two decades out of state, but never considered myself anything other than a Texan.”

Bangs said moving back to the Metroplex made sense if they were to start their own production company, given the saturation in New York.

“If we’d stayed in New York, there are so many production companies already that starting our own officially seemed redundant. But DFW doesn’t have the same amount of intensity regarding the arts, so starting one here feels right,” she said.

Brown said they chose Stage West as the venue for “Oleanna” because something just felt right.

“We looked at a number of theaters throughout Dallas/Fort Worth and were so grateful that Stage West Theatre could accommodate us. It’s an absolutely tremendous space,” he said. “Stage West puts up amazing shows, they have a terrific following, and personally, as a performer, I just loved the vibe there.”

Choosing the play

As for choosing “Oleanna,” Brown said he first saw a production of the play while in college and “was absolutely blown away by the script, and then blown away even further during the talk-back following the show.”

The tagline for the show is “Whichever side you take ... you’re wrong.”

“I have never seen a more visceral — and evenly divided — reaction. There were literally people yelling at each other,” he recalled. “I think that Mamet’s genius in this play is that it doesn’t take a side. It presents a situation for these two characters, draws it to a logical conclusion, and the takeaway is purely up to the individual audience member. It is not a he-said/she-said. I’d say it’s a he-does/she does.

“There’s scarcely a reflective moment in the script. It is provocative drama played out in real time.”

Brown noted that Mamet wrote the play decades before #MeToo, Harvey Weinstein, the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, etc. He said they are staging “Oleanna” now because they feel the subject matter and Mamet’s script is more relevant today than ever.

“On a personal note, I was 19 when I first saw “Oleanna.” I remember loving the play so much, but — like most actors — my first thought was, ‘Pity there’s no part for me. It’s just a girl and some old guy.’ It took 30 years, but I guess I’m glad I finally aged into being able to play the old guy,” Brown said with a smile.

Bangs said she and Brown are already looking at other scripts and brainstorming on what Sweet Apple’s next production might be.

“We have considered doing ‘Children of a Lesser God’ and working with the deaf community. We know a couple deaf actors and some actors who aren’t deaf but sign,” she said. “We also will be going back to shooting some more of my podcast episodes.”

‘Oleanna’ at Stage West

• Written by David Mamet, starring Ryan Brown and Bethany Soder and directed by Jennifer Bangs.
• Produced by Sweet Apple Productions
• Stage West Theatre, 821/823 W. Vickery Blvd., Fort Worth
• March 30-April 2 (showtimes: 7:30 p.m Thursday-Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Sunday)
• Tickets: $25-$35
• Visit: https://sweetappleproductions.com/product/oleanna-tickets/

This story was originally published March 22, 2023 at 6:00 AM.