102 | SEPTEMBER 26 • 2024 
J
N

ARTS&LIFE
THEATRE

B

ryan Thomas Hunt didn’t 
start out on the typical 
trajectory befitting the 
now triple-threat actor. Growing up 
in Portland, Oregon, Hunt and his 
family were all-sports, all the time. 
His dad was a wrestler and played 
baseball. His mom was a runner. 
And the whole family dominated in 
tennis. A public-school teacher for 
30 years who converted to Judaism 
when he got married, Hunt’s father 
coached Bryan and his sister’s soccer 
and tennis teams.
“I was always athletic and agile,” 
Hunt says. “I just had a lot of energy 
as a child.” 
And then, one day, his mother 
signed him up for some classes at the 
Northwest Children’s Theater.
“
And I caught the bug,” recalls 
Hunt, who’s performing in the Tony 
Award-winning musical comedy 
Some Like It Hot coming to the Fisher 
Theatre Oct. 1-13. 
It was while prepping for his bar 

mitzvah at Congregation Beth Israel 
that Hunt really learned to sing, 
crediting Cantor Judith Blanc Schiff 
for the encouragement. Cantor Schiff 
recommended Hunt for a role in 
Gimpel the Fool, a full-length opera 
composed by her husband, David 
Schiff. Schiff originally wrote Gimpel 
the Fool almost entirely in Yiddish 
and, later on, wrote an English 
version as well. It was performed 
all over the country, including at 
the University of Michigan Opera 
Theater, starring Theodore Bikel.
“Cantor Schiff was really 
instrumental in supporting me,” says 
Hunt, whose great-grandfather was a 
rabbi in Latvia. “She saw my budding 
talent, and I got to perform with 
extremely wonderful opera singers. 
And that opened my eyes to the 
performing arts and where I learned 
to cultivate my musicality.” 
He attended ACMA, the Arts and 
Communications Magnet Academy, 
for high school.

“I have vivid memories of running 
lines with my mother for any 
children’s theater production that 
I happened to be in at the time. 
Practicing for my bar mitzvah, she 
would help me find confidence 
when I was nervous,” Hunt says 
about his mom, who runs a property 
management company in Portland 
with his aunt. “I can’t begin to 
calculate the hours my mother spent 
driving me to Sunday Hebrew school, 

voice lessons, dance classes, play 
rehearsals and other activities.”
In 2011, Hunt graduated with a 
BFA in Musical Theater from The 
Boston Conservatory.
“My sister was very smart and went 
to college for marketing on a tennis 
scholarship, and my family jokes 
that I got a degree in jazz hands,” 
Hunt says with a laugh about the 
iconic dance move popularized by 
legendary choreographer Bob Fosse.
Hunt’s jazz hands and precision 
feet have served him quite well. He’s 
performed in the national tours of 
Irving Berlin’s White Christmas and 
Billy Elliot, which Hunt performed 
in when it came through the Fisher 
Theatre in 2012. 
“Right out of college, I was 
propelled into the stylized old school 
tap-dancing world. Most of my 
career has been in tap dance musicals 
between the 1920s and 1950s. So, 
when you find your niche, it’s really 
wonderful,” says Hunt, 35.

Just Vamp

Bryan Thomas Hunt 
takes it up a step in 
Some Like It Hot.

JULIE SMITH YOLLES CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Bryan 
Thomas 
Hunt 

MARC J. FRANKLIN

The original 
Broadway cast of 
Some Like It Hot 

