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His act: extrovert

Star of musicals insists that he's really shy

By Rich Copley rcopley@herald-leader.com

In front of all of the Bluegrass — or at least, anyone in Central Kentucky who buys tickets to stage musicals — Adam Richard Fister has belted out big songs, romanced cute girls and committed all manner of indiscretions demanded by the script of Hair.

This very afternoon, he stood near the corner of Short Street and Broadway and bellowed out an operatic "Aaaaaa!" with minimal prompting.

So, tucked in a booth at Starbucks, it's surprising when Fister says, "I'm actually a shy person. The whole idea of being in front of people just freaks me out."

You wouldn't know it by his résumé, which he has brought along for reference.

Lately, almost any time someone in Central Kentucky has staged a musical, Fister, 27, has been there.

At SummerFest in 2008, he was Claude, the hippie struggling to decide whether to dodge the draft in Hair. Last spring, he was Will Parker, Ado Annie's suitor, in The Woodford Theatre's production of Oklahoma! Then he was back in The Arboretum last summer as Daniel in Once on This Island.

This week, Fister will rejoin Paragon Music Theatre as Cornelius Hackl, the guy in Hello Dolly! who decides to ditch his dead-end job to go to New York and kiss a girl.

"I like the way he's shaping up," Fister says, looking over that long résumé. "Cornelius may be my new favorite."

In working on the character, Fister says, he has come to appreciate the openness of Cornelius, a glass-half-full kind of guy who doesn't bemoan that he has only $1.35 in his pocket and that his little excursion might cost him his job.

"I kind of connect with that character in a way," Fister says. "He's almost naïve to a fault, just so open and so honest. He gets taken advantage of, but it's cool, because at the end of the day, you can have really great experiences if you're open to it."

This from a guy who admits that he hates parties because he's not terribly outgoing, but he'll get on stage and dramatize an LSD trip.

Turns out Fister likes his interaction either micro, with just a few friends, or macro, like the Lexington Opera House.

He first tried out for a musical when he was in seventh grade at Christ the King School and auditions were announced for Oklahoma!

"I used to just walk around the house singing, bothering my mom," Fister says. "On a whim, a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to try out and I said, it might be fun, and I got Curly. It was the biggest deal to me. I'd be sitting in the class memorizing lines, not paying attention, singing in the hallways."

Again, shy? Well, some of the behavior could have been attributed to nerves. Fister says he was trying to drill lines into his noggin so he would be sure not to mess up.

But he also was hooked.

"I loved it up on stage," Fister says. "I loved the attention and the music."

Next was Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz and any other musical he could get a part in.

Fister also found that he had a natural talent for music, learning piano and guitar by ear. He stayed with theater through high school at Lexington Catholic and into college at the University of Kentucky. He was in a number of shows at UK, although he calls college "my lost weekend."

In the past few years, Fister has stepped up his musical theater efforts.

Paragon brought him back into the game with its initial production of State Fair in 2004 and again with The Music Man in 2008, after he spent a few years trying to find a day job.

"Every time he performs in a show, he takes some nugget away from it that builds his craft," says Ryan Shirar, music director of Paragon. "He's willing to take whatever part is available, and he'll take it and make something really special out of it."

Shirar recalls Paragon artistic director Robyn Peterman-Zahn seeing Fister's performance in Hair and saying, "We have to get him at Paragon."

Hair was a big step for Fister: "I didn't know if I could do it. It had been a while since I had played a lead."

Now, not content to just be on stage, Fister finds himself seeking challenges. He gleefully remembers learning that he could dance in cowboy boots in Oklahoma! and he contemplates taking a dance class. He wants to diversify his résumé with villainous parts — Sweeney Todd, anyone? He improved his piano playing by buying the Sweeney score and working his way through it.

Most of Fister's off-stage pursuits swirl around theater, too. A guitarist and bassist as well as a pianist, Fister entertains the notion of getting a rock band together but wonders whether anyone would like playing in his style, which he describes as strange, invoking the jam-band Phish as a comparison.

Maybe he'll even take a shot at the professional stage.

"I guess if I were going to do it, now would be the time," Fister says. "I'm single, no kids, no real steady job."

During a period in 2006 and '07, he tried a few things, including selling insurance, and concluded, "I'm not a salesman. Maybe I'd be more suited to a job in a little cubicle."

Well, that or jumping on stage and singing to hundreds of people about kissing a girl.

Right now, getting on the Opera House stage, the same one where he used to come to see Broadway Live shows with his mother, satisfies Fister's soul.