BWW Exclusive: Meet Ramone Nelson from New Paradigm Theatre's FOOTLOOSE

Hi, my name is Ramon Nelson. I'm originally from Atlanta, Georgia, but I just graduated

from Florida State University. Well, the plan is to come to New York right after Footloose

I auditioned for Footloose through the A1 conference. I was not going to do it, the A1

conference at all, funny enough. My friend was like, just do it. And then I got a call

back, oh, I think I'm cool enough to play Renz. That's fine. I like to think of him

as a pure average guy. He's just this cool guy who loves to dance

and lives his best life. He has his own troubles, of course, through this town and through this move

He's figuring out his own troubles while also helping their troubles, helping other people while figuring out yourself

while also singing and dancing. What more can you ask for? One, I'm excited to play this role because it's focus

Two, I'm excited to play it because I am a Black man playing this role

and it's gonna be completely different. The scene that always sticks out for me is the police scene

That gonna be a whole different thing in my mind because I know for me driving anywhere at night or anyway during the day it always like a heightened thing I always have to be alert

My father told me to never, ever drive without my wallet, like right in the dashboards

Playing Ren, who literally is like, you know, in the musical, it's, we don't want dance

but there's so much more added to that. It's going to be fresh. It's going to be new. It's

going to be a different take and I'm excited to get started on it. I started dancing in high school

I went to performing arts high school so our musicals were very, very dance heavy. I learned

how to pick up choreography quickly from that. Like my thing in high school was like I can turn

and we could take one class I wanted to take two. If we could take two I wanted to take four. Like I

was in every single dance class that I could take and that blew my mind. I knew that I was a dancer

but I didn't really believe it. My senior year was the pandemic hit. All of senior year was just

focusing on self How do we do it What is your setup So that what I was focusing on blue background ring light like box lights everything i had external mic like everything that i could get i got i sent in the

first round of tapes which is like a dance call two songs four sides which at this point everyone

knows how to do these self tapes at this point roles that do both is amazing i was like yes ren

is dancing but also telling the story and telling this sharing this message but also like screaming

to the stratosphere which i enjoy then we did a zoom callback which is always a little weird

playing to a camera but making sure that it's also theater but also not too much she knew she

wanted me as wren but the thing that put me over the edge of the other people was i work at a

performing arts school camp it's called making light productions you know with kids special needs

And I was a teacher there, and I taught singing, dancing, and acting there

That job changed my life, for sure. I struggling right now because I miss them so much And she was like yeah okay that all we need And I said okay great I was like hope that went well Like I didn know it was yeah So I was like hope that went well

And then she called me the next day. That's what it was. And now we're here

I'm CS at New Paradigm Theater, August 20th and 21st. I can't forget how it feels when you dance till you drop

So don't even start to suggest that I stop. I never will

Thank you