About Ric
Ric is the founder and Artistic Director of the Psychic Readings Co, a performance collective that has entertained, frightened, and confused audiences with their interdisciplinary hysterics since 1999. The company has produced their strange brand of challenging and original theatre work which has been staged at various venues in the U.S. and Europe, including the Ontological-Hysteric… more
The Fête of Mistakes; A Sublimated Sideshow of Everyday Brutality and Sweets
In The Fête of Mistakes, Psychic Readings Co constructs an abstract fairground littered with the overwhelmingness of despair and the sustained tension of hopefulness.
It’s never really made clear, but I think the play takes place in Niagara Falls: the city so depressed it jumped over...itself. Beneath Niagara Falls hides the Cave of the Winds, the humbug attraction that blows life into the lungs of the greatest sideshow of lies called The Fête of Mistakes! It’s a love/horror story about exploitation. Or rather, a musical about the insidiousness of capitalism. Get in line to taste the sugary goodness of the American Dream! [Note: the play ends in a gruesome demolition derby where everyone dies]
Fête, written and directed by Ric Royer, has been presented three times: Ontological Hysteric Theatre (NYC, 2012), Silent Barn (NYC 2014) and Le Mondo (Baltimore, 2016)
Set design: Xander Marro and Emma Reaves
Sound design: G Lucas Crane
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Ric rejects the treatRic is tempted by a sweet sweet zeppole. photo by Grace Hoellander
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Dance of the Long Armed LadyFiona Crowley as "The Long Armed Lady"
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Cave Of The Winds by Ric RoyerSong from The Fete of Mistakes. Written and performed by Ric Royer
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Fete introRic Royer and G Lucas Crane. photo by Dave Iden.
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Demo Derby beginsRic in the Fete of Mistakes Demolition Derby!
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Ghost cars in the Demo DerbyThe glow-in-the-dark demo derby begins, pitting two lovers against each other in a head-to-head face-off!
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Tragic endingThe Long Armed Lady perishes! Better luck next time!
Garbage, Death and the City of Baltimore
Adapted and directed by Ric Royer.
Named “Best Play” of 2015, City Paper Best of Baltimore
This was the premier production at Psychic Readings, a performance space in the Bromo Arts District opened by the Psychic Readings Co in 2015. "Garbage" was inspired both by Fassbinder's play as well as the sci-fi novel Dhalgren, by Samuel Delaney. The play takes place in a futuristic Baltimore, where the city is found abandoned by those with the means of leaving. What is left behind are the presumed "problems" that are blamed for the city's downfall: the poor, the addicted, the pimps, prostitutes and criminals who build a new foundation for the broken metropolis. Just as the outcasts begin to rebuild their inherited land, those who had abandoned them - developers, speculators, predatory landlords and the people who protect them (police, government...) - return to reclaim "their" city after watching from afar.
This piece was performed before any renovations had occurred in our rented property at 219 Park Ave. Our set was the work of decades of neglect from the neglegent property owner. A year later, my outcast theatre collective has invested thousands of hours and dollars into the building. Some day, perhaps, a neglegent landlord, developer or the city itself, may come along and inherit "their" property too.
Late Night Theatre Series
The second season is currently underway, with recent shows by Peter Redgrave and Zack Trebino.
The first season of Late Night at Psychic Readings featured six short plays from guest directors, produced by Ric Royer's Psychic Readings Co.
Late Night Theatre Season #1:
“Smallest Something Not Quite Nothing”; written by Thalia Field and directed by Bonnie Jones
January 6 & 7
“Hold Me While I’m Craven”; A theatrical montage inspired by the Kuchar brothers. Directed by Lexie Mountain (directorial debut)
February 12-14
“Cleveland”; a play by Mac Wellman, directed by Carly J. Bales (directorial debut)
March 4-6
“Salaam Salome” an adaptation of Salome by the Snake in the Boot Collective, directed by Admiral Grey (Philadelphia)
April 15-17
“A Flood of Emotions”, an original piece written and directed by Theresa Columbus.
June 16 & 17
“The Purple Flower” (1928); written by Marita Bonner, directed by Rosalind Cauthen
July 1-3
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"Hold Me While I’m Craven”Performance still from “Hold Me While I’m Craven”, directed by Lexie Mountain. Video taken by Mark Colegrove
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"Cleveland"Cleveland, a play by Mac Wellman. Directed by Carly Bales.
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Late Night posterPoster by Carl Dunn.
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Not Today SalomeFrom "Not Today Salome", an adaptation of Salome, directed by Admiral Grey
My Sincerest Apologies, Victor Frankenstein
I was obsessed with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein for about a year and made three pieces about it. This is one. MSA,VF is (the description of) an epic blockbuster featuring sexy actors, manly stage-hands (actual ex-boxers!), ghosts, and hilarious conjoined twins! In this version of Frankenstein, which has very little if anything to do with Frankenstein, Frankenstein offers a public show of erotic apology for falling so deeply in love with beauty that he initiated a sexual relationship with aesthetics itself.
Performed at AS220 (Providence, 2011), 14 Karat Cabaret (Baltimore, 2012) and Bushwick Star (NYC, 2011)
The Failures
Written by Ric Royer and Peter Mills Weiss.
Billed as “an in-depth look at what makes failures fail and how YOU can achieve success through their ineptitude and misery”, The Failures is a campy horror/musical/comedy that irreverently comments on insidious everyday structures where the success of an individual relies on the failure or oppression of another. In the play, an audience member (played by Jon Swift) is tortured any time the performers do anything well. Eventually, he’s tortured anyway.
The Failures has been performed at Psychic Readings (Baltimore) and at the Exponential Festival in NYC.
The Maids
Adapted and directed by Ric Royer.
Featuring Carly J. Bales, Nicollette LeFaye and Kyra Evelyn.
Gaudy, grotesque, rough and raw, our version of The Maids offers a creepier, darker and more and sinister aesthetic (with a gloppy sugary twist) than our usual work.
From the program: This is not Jean Genet’s, “The Maids”. Genet’s play, published and produced in 1947, has found a recent resurgence on stage and is widely available in print if you’d like to read it.
Our play, The Maids, might have been Genet’s play at some point, but even the same action performed twice is not identical, let alone performed endlessly, played on loop for nearly 70 years. The rich have become richer, the poor bigger and weaker, the rituals more obscure, the fetishes further removed from their psychological, sexual and/or superstitious roots…
We don’t even know what has become of Genet’s play. We’ve lost the plot. The code to interpret the games our maids play has been rubbed smoothed by supplicating hands. Details from the game Genet set in motion have been washed away by the eternal repetition performed in a single room, in a single act. Genet’s “whirligig of being and appearance” has spun out of control, pieces of his text have flung away like accessories in a manic cosplay, and the remembrance of the outside world is failing. Gone is the milkman, the monsieur, and perhaps even the madame herself. Most disturbing of all, the maids remain. Unable to exit through death or imprisonment, the maids continue to act out their roles of servitude to a master who has long departed, leaving a power system forever rippling in the wake of her train.