Ever wondered what happened to that incredibly talented guy in orchestra with you? Or to that girl in several of your literature classes who wrote the most insightful essays you had ever read? Whatever happens to some of Iowa State’s distinguished graduates?

One former Cyclone, who waved goodbye to ISU in 1988, is starring on Broadway with some of show business’s most major stars.

Dennis Ryan will play the role of Paul in Moon Over Buffalo, which opened in Boston Aug. 15 and will hit the Broadway stage Sept. 13.

The acting bud nipped Ryan as a teenager and kept him infected throughout his days of adolescence. He even attended summer classes to hone his skill. If that’s not dedication, what is?

“I got turned onto [theater] in high school initially,” Ryan explained. “I did a couple of plays there and did great. Then in the summer of ’84, I went to the North Carolina School of the Arts.”

Once in college, however, theater was not always first and foremost on his mind. Ryan, like many college students, wondered, “What on earth am I gonna do with my life?!”

“I started out in a number of different majors,” he said. “I had an interest in theater but hadn’t committed to it yet. I didn’t until the end of my junior year, and by that time, it was foolish to go back, so I just graduated with a BBA in transportation and logistics.”

Ryan has a lot of praise for the theater department at his alma mater. Along with some great faculty members, our fair university boasts a generous budget, well-produced shows and great facilities. “I got a lot of good experience at Iowa State,” he said.

After his tenure at ISU, when most people are still scrambling to send out resumes and find subleasers, Ryan went back to school, this time on the East Coast.

He spent three years with the Professional Theatre Training Program of the University of Delaware and got his Master of Fine Arts degree in Acting in 1992. With another graduation under his belt, he decided that he had nothing to lose.

“That’s when real life hits,” Ryan said. “I packed everything up, had $700 and moved to New York City. All I had was a place to stay. I started doing temp work, got interest in a couple of agencies, got some regional theater jobs.”

He worked his way up to a new role. Ryan was originally cast as the understudy of Paul in Moon Over Buffalo; how he got the actual part involved a smidge of luck, some good timing and a load of talent.

“I was hired as the understudy,” Ryan explained. “They didn’t have a Paul, and they needed someone to rehearse the part. A week later they came to me and said, ‘We’d like you to do Boston.'”

The Boston stint was what theater types call a “tryout run,” a sort of preview of a show that gives a show’s producers the chance to clean things up before running before Broadway critics.

The cast runs through the performance in front of a live, paying audience, and then they gauge responses, catch glitches and rewrite lines, all with enough time left over to polish the rough edges before the show hits New York City.

Ryan’s bosses were so impressed with his performance that they asked him to stay on for the entire run in New York. Rehearsals start Thursday, and the first preview is a week from today. Depending on audience response, Moon Over Buffalo could run anywhere from weeks to years. But amazingly, Ryan does not feel any pressure.

“There’s a lot at stake, but I try not to think about that; I just try to do the play,” Ryan said. “My job is to play a character named Paul and play it as well as I can. Let the chips fall where they may.”

Moon Over Buffalo has allowed Ryan to rub shoulders with some of the biggest names in the industry. Imagine working alongside Carol Burnett, Phillip Bosco (Tony Award nominee for the recent revival of The Heiress), Randy Graff (Tony Award nominee from the original Broadway cast of Les Miserables) and Jane Connell (“Agnes Gooch” in both the Broadway and film versions of Mame).

“Oh my God, it’s been great,” Ryan said. “They’re awesome; there’s a real sense of family. I’m incredibly humbled by the experience. It’s like when you receive a gift and you can either sit there and say, ‘Yeah, I’m supposed to be doing this,’ or you can be excited.

“Carol Burnett’s a helluva name. And she’s 100 times nicer in person than she is on TV.”