Erik Bryan is a versatile actor who has performed across the country upon the operatic and musical theatre stage.  Most recently he was bestowed the 2009 Denver Post Ovation Award for Best Actor in a Musical for the role of Erik, the Phantom in Yeston & Koppit's Phantom at the Candlelight Dinner Playhouse. The similarity between the character's name and his own is not coincidental either. Erik was named after the character from the original Gaston Leroux novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra. Erik will perform Papageno in the "Opera Theatre of the Rockies Goes to School" dress rehearsal performance of Die Zauberflöte on Friday February 26 (a private performance) and will be visiting Colorado Springs High Schools with the company's outreach program. He will also be featured in Stars of Magic Flute, a concert at Colorado College’s Packard Hall. This will be the third year in a row he has been a principal performer for Opera Theatre of the Rockies.

In October of 2008, Erik appeared as Fabrizio Naccarelli in the opera house premiere of the Light in the Piazza withNorth Carolina’s Piedmont Opera Company. He also made his operatic debut as El Dancaïro in Carmen with Opera Theatre of the Rockies in March of 2008.

Erik was born in Colorado Springs, CO to magicians John and Michèle Bryan. His first steps on the stage were at the age of four when he joined his parents in their magic act. Throughout his youth, he developed a passion for the theatre and a love of music. After five years of violin studies, he turned his attention to singing. High school gave him the first chance to perform fully staged musicals and by the end of his freshman year, he found himself working at the local community theatre. At seventeen, Erik won the high school vocal competition held by Martile Rowland’s Opera Theatre of the Rockies and was cast in the chorus of the company’s production of La Fille du Régiment. That same year, he played Inspector Javert in the Colorado Springs Premiere of Les Misérables, a performance which earned him a Peak Area Performance and Artist Award nomination for best actor. As he continued to pursue a life in the professional theatre, he graduated high school a semester early to perform in Jekyll & Hyde, his first Actors' Equity production, at the Arvada Center.

He then went to New York City to study at Marymount Manhattan College where he had the chance to perform the role of Cinderella’s Prince in Into the Woods at the Theresa Lang Theatre. After one year at Marymount, he returned to Denver to continue his studies privately. Since then his appearances have included productions with the Country Dinner Playhouse, Littleton Town Hall, Bryan Magic Productions, the Imagination Celebration, Opera Theatre of the Rockies, and Colorado College’s Vocal Arts Symposium. His association with Mitch Samu, the music director for the Country Dinner Playhouse, led him to the world of concert performance. Last March, Erik toured New Orleans with a solo concert featuring musical theatre and operatic repertoire. In addition to his musical career, Mr. Bryan is the co-creator of the National Renaissance Festival act Charming & Dashing in which he plays the role of Sir Dashing.