Student actor, a stickler for detail and order, plays his roles and his life just-so

By Natalie Andrews

April 30, 2005 | At Christmas, the blue presents are opened long before the white, and red ones are in between. If two presents are the same color, the presents are then opened in the alphabetical order of their accent color on the wrapping paper.

Knowing this alphabetical routine, if his parents wanted him to open a present last, they'd wrap it in yellow paper.

Oddly enough, the theatre world, where Tyson Smith plans to spend his profession, really isn't organized. In fact, it can be chaotic. Still, he periodically changes the organization of his VHS collection, the most recent being alphabetizing by lead actor and then movie title. He has also sorted them by running time.

Smith, originally from Sandy, made his final appearance with the Utah State Theatre Company this month in Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors. He originally came to USU with the plan to dual major in performance theatre and pre-med. He wanted to act his way through grad school.

One science class showed him that he didn't want to spend the rest of his life doing that, however, and he dropped the pre-med part of his schooling. Recently, he was honored as one of the three talent finalists for the USU Robins Awards. What sets him apart, according to him, is obedience.

"The director wants me to stand in a lunge all the time and do twists and leaps and be pretty, so that's what I do," Smith said. His methodical, organized skills don't seem to play a big part onstage. But they come in handy other ways.

They certainly do in Smith's on-campus job. Smith works at the Merrill Library because working in a library is something he's always wanted to do. He loves the organization and could sit and read the books, especially in the art room for hours.

Instead of reading, Smith is a "tagger." He spends his time at the library placing computer chips into books that, when the new Merrill-Cazier Library is finished, will be used for check-out. The taggers systematically go through every book in the library, scan the optical barcode that is currently used to identify the book in the computer and use place the new sticker chip inside the back of it.

"He does like his things in order. Things have to be in order," Smith's roommate and boyfriend of two years, Jeff Bennect said. Bennect lives in Tucson, Ariz., where he is a computer engineer, or "rocket scientist" as Smith says.

"He's very ordered about vacations, too," Bennect said.

Whenever they travel, things must be planned. He recalled coming home from Long Beach a few weeks ago with some friends. They wanted to stop and hike, but Smith planned on being in Phoenix that evening. He was not happy, and arrived in Phoenix upset, Bennect said.

"I kind of like to think that I help relax him a bit," Bennect said. They have been dating for just over two years. Originally they met in a chat room for gay men, and then decided to meet during the night of the Oscars.

If Smith had free money and free time, he would go to New York. Smith has figured out how to see seven performances in five days.

"I feel like I'm wasting my time when I'm not watching a play," Smith says. He will see matinees Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday, and evening performances in between.

Next time he goes to New York, he'd like to take Bennect -- Jeffrey as he calls him -- because he's never been and it's a vital part of Smith's life.

Support is important in Bennect and Smith's relationship. Bennect delayed his move to Arizona so that he could see Comedy of Errors.

Smith supports Bennect in their busy lives by cleaning and cooking. His favorite dish that Smith makes is cheese enchiladas, mostly because it's good, but also because of sentimental reasons. It was one of the first dishes that Smith made for Bennect when they were first starting to get to know each other.

"I don't even think I've missed a minor role he's been in since we started dating," Bennect said.

This does mean that Bennect has seen a lot of stage kissing. Smith would much rather kiss a man onstage, but often ends up kissing women because the roles available to homosexuals are few and often stereotypical, he said. The type of material chosen also varies also because of the need to bring in an audience.

"On the Logan stage, I think I would be terrified to kiss a guy, because of what the audience response would be," Smith said. His first kiss ever was in Much Ado About Nothing, and he was scared because he'd never kissed anyone. Now, he doesn't worry about it.

On first meeting Smith, one might find themselves wrapped up in conversation. Smith doesn't hesitate to be friendly. When they both started in the circulation department at the Sci-Tech library spring semester 2004, Miriam Rachel Fisher recalls that Smith was one of the first people she met.

"I just thought he was really, really funny. I remember thinking, that boy, he's funny. He's worth knowing," Fisher said.

Recoding every book in a library with a catalog of more than 650,000 books could get tedious. Smith keeps things interesting through conversation, Fisher says.

"Tyson likes to talk about funny things. Like, if he's seen something absurd during the day, or if something he that he saw on television was just absurd," Fisher said. She giggles, but can't remember anything specifically funny he's said.

"I don't even know how to describe what we talk about . . . bad days or irritating people or stresses in life. And sometimes it's just funny," Fisher said.

While being funny onstage, Smith will excitedly roll his voice from a low pitch to a high trill. When asked how he acquired that skill, he smiles, looks downward as if caught in between two places in his life and speaks of serving an LDS mission and speaking Lithuanian and Russian fluently.

"In another time, in another place," Smith said. He revealed his homosexuality to friends after his mission.

"Religiously, I have more questions than I have answers," Smith says. He relies on his social upbringing from his family for inspiration and guidance.

There are pictures of Smith as "little baby townsperson," as he refers to himself, at age two in The Music Man with his parents. The first play he remembers doing is being Mowgli, from the Jungle Book.

"I was this skinny little white boy who was shirtless and like all bones running around in cut off shorts trying to look like I was lost in the jungle," Smith recalls the humor in the start of his career. His parents enrolled him in everything from voice lessons to basketball, and he found the best fit was onstage.

"His acting has a great depth to it that I don't think a lot of actors possess," Fisher said. Her mother graduated with a theatre degree from Yale, so she grew up reviewing performances. As for Smith, she loves watching him. The first thing she saw him in was a one-act he directed, The Boston Marriage. Her favorite has been Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, which ran in February.

"I've done three plays this year and they've been crazy different from each other. I think what I bring to the table that a lot of other actors either can't or won't is a willingness to invest myself holistically in each of those visions independently of each other," Smith said.

In Comedy of Errors, Smith plays two parts that are usually played by two people. However, because he plays a set of identical twins with the same name, Antipholus, his director asked him to play both characters.

"It's about the most high-stress role I've every done though," Smith says.

He was honored when the director, Artemis Preeshl, asked him to play both simultaneously. Though acting a comedic character, he shows his personality by occasionally lifting his mask and talking to the audience.

The two Antipholuses' costumes are the same, except for a few buttons on a shirt, a mask, and the color of feathers in a hat-it changes from orange to blue. But, as happened on April 22, if Smith forgets something, like to put the mask back when changing characters, he doesn't worry about it. Improvisation is part of the gig. Once he realized his mistake, he told the audience that he'd be right back, and came back with the mask on, sighing in relief, saying, "Oh, I felt so naked!" in the right, shrill voice.

Smith will graduate this spring with a bachelor of fine arts with a performance emphasis. He will to spend the summer in Logan, working for the Lyric Theatre. After that, he plans to join Bennect in Tucson.

Someday, he hopes to end up in a big city's art scene. His preference would be Boston, but he'll stay inside the "square states" until he gets more comfortable with a big city and can try for a position on a repertory theatre, Smith says. If there's one thing he doesn't plan on doing, it's slowing down.

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