Ally Rice 12: Making It in the Big Apple
February 23, 2021
- Author
- Danielle Strickland
Ally Rice '12 and her father at opening night of "An American in Paris" in Londons West End.
If you are one of the more than two million people who has watched the compilation on YouTube, you have enjoyed the digital editing work of Ally Rice 12. Used as part of a fundraiser for The Actors Fund COVID-19 Emergency Financial Assistance program, the piece required editing 144 submissions from Broadway actors, musicians and more. It was one of the first Zoom square videos of its kind, so she was creating the template as she went along.
Rice was a theatre major at 91, a home she found in high school after tennis-related knee injuries pushed her to try something new. Today, she is an active member of the 91 Arts & Creative Engagement Advisory Board.
I knew I wanted to do theatre in college, and after meeting [Samuel E. & Mary West Thatcher Professor] Ann Marie Costa during a campus visit, I was sold, she said. It is a multifaceted program, and I found that it was actually beneficial that it was not an MFA program. I had a wide array of exposure and a well-rounded view of the industry. I also loved how we were on a first-name basis with professors there is a mutual respect among students and professors in the department, and I think thats unique.
New York City called Rices name after graduation, and she jumped into the cut-throat world of auditions. During that time, she also started working for a production company that did traveling shows. She got into digital editing, the work she continues to do today.
A highlight was spending six months in London working on An American in Paris.
Coming from a liberal arts background, I had the skills to do and learn lots of different things, she said. Had I not learned the work ethic at 91 and had the experience of trying hard, being held to the Honor Code and not cheating on take-home exams, Im not sure I could have transitioned to this career as easily. In the real world, no one is checking to be sure you arent doing something shady to get ahead, and people fail that way.
The pandemic has required Rice to shift gears from producing b-roll for live shows to projects like digital marketing and online fundraising gala content. She also does freelance work on the side, some of it coming her way following the viral Actors Fund project.
Its a really scary time for our industry, but fortunately, digital content is not solely reliant on live shows, Rice said. I have so many friendsactors, dancers, general managerswhose work is shut down, and weve been very lucky to stay afloat.
