Brains, Heart, and Courage

As a quiet, creative boy growing up on a cotton farm in northeastern Louisiana, Ryan Bunch GSC’23 would look forward to the annual network television broadcast of The Wizard of Oz. Watching Dorothy travel from a black-and-white Kansas prairie to a colorful fantasy world filled with magical creatures that could sing, dance, and fly, he was filled with hope that there was more beyond the limits of his small southern town. Since then, his love of L. Frank Baum’s book series and its myriad offshoots for page, stage, and screen has expanded and endured; earlier this year, he was named the new president of the International Wizard of Oz Club. But who is the man behind the curtain?

“I grew up in a rural community where I was a queer, creative misfit,” said Bunch. “Oz and other fantasies helped me cultivate a strong sense of my interior self despite my extreme shyness in real life, much like Dorothy’s friends, who found brains, heart, and courage within themselves.”

Bunch, who graduated with his doctorate in childhood studies from the Graduate School at Rutgers University in Camden, is the author of Oz and the Musical: Performing the American Fairy Tale, published by Oxford University Press in 2022, which explores the impact of the story and its many adaptations on American culture.

“The Wizard of Oz has been called the American fairy tale, and musicals are regarded as an American art form,” said Bunch, noting that the story also represents the search for belonging and acceptance, something he could relate to as a child.

Bunch has belonged to the International Wizard of Oz Club since 1985, when he convinced his mother to give him $10 for the membership fee. Currently 700 members strong, the club brings together Oz enthusiasts from around the globe to share in their common love of the well-known story. As its new president, Bunch hopes to continue long-standing traditions like the annual convention while diversifying and growing the membership.

Bunch released his book "Oz and the Musical: Performing the American Fairy Tale" in 2022

“When I was younger, the Oz club was an important connection to a new community of people with whom I shared a common interest,” said Bunch. He believes time spent at the conferences throughout the years both connected him with like-minded friends and inspired him to think critically about children’s culture and popular entertainment at an early age, eventually leading to the academic work he does now.

“After getting a master’s degree in historical musicology, I was working in a variety of different jobs, but I always wanted to study childhood from a cultural and political perspective,” Bunch said. “The childhood studies program at Rutgers-Camden was perfect for me, not only because it’s the only such program in the country, but also because I was already teaching in the music program at Rutgers-Camden, so it already felt like my academic home.”

And, as Dorothy herself famously said: There’s no place like home.

Bunch greets guests at a book signing

Bunch at the Wizard of Oz Club National Convention in 2022

Design: Karaamat Abdullah
Images courtesy of Ryan Bunch