Department of Theatre, Drama, and Contemporary Dance

Appointed to IU in 2007

Ray Fellman resides in NYC and Bloomington, Indiana, where he is a professor of musical theatre at Indiana University and continues to have an active career as a music director, pianist, singer, and vocal coach. NYC music directing credits include Stephen Schwartz’s Captain Louie (Little Schubert Theater/Nat'l Tour) including a performance on The Today Show; Richard Rogers Award-winning musical The Tutor by Andrew Gerle (Prospect Theatre Company at 59 E 59); Reluctant Pilgrim (NYMTF/Barrow Group); 22 Caliber Mouth directed by TONY Award-winner Diane Paulis (Ohio Theater) and Buddy's Tavern starring Laura Osnes and directed by Warren Carlyle (Hudson Guild); numerous workshop readings with Adam Gwon, Kooman/Dimond, Carner/Gregor, Lance Horne, Derfner/Sheinkin, Heitzman/Reid, and Pete Mills in such venues as The O'Neill National Music Theatre Conference, The York Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, Dramatists Guild and The Zipper. Regionally, Ray has conducted Les Miserables, Sunset Boulevard, Sweeney Todd, Phantom, Legally Blond, and The Wizard of Oz at the Fulton Theatre (Lancaster, PA), directed by multiple Jeff Award-winner Marc Robin, A Little Night Music starring Sylvia McNair at Indiana Repertory Theatre, Chamberlain: A Civil War Romance starring Kathy Voytko (A Gentleman's Guide) at Maine State Music Theatre, and Sweeney Todd and West Side Story at the Teatro Nacional Sucre in Quito, Ecuador. He has also music directed Spring Awakening, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Mr. Burns: A Post Electric Play, and Seussical at Indiana University, in addition to the world premiere of Carner and Gregor's Island Song in conjunction with the Bloomington Playwrights Project.

As a cabaret artist, Ray music directed and conducted the 2007 Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs Awards at B.B. King's featuring Joan Rivers. He also received the Backstage Magazine Bistro Award for The After Party, a weekly open mic of Broadway's finest, at the Laurie Beechman Theatre on 42nd St. Additionally Ray has performed at Feinstein's, The Algonquin, Jazz At Lincoln Center, Joe's Pub, Birdland, Metropolitan Room, Duplex Cabaret Theatre, Lucille Lortel Theatre, Town Hall, and The Ice Palace with such artists as Lea Michele, Alice Ripley, Shoshana Bean, Sandi Patty, Ariana Grande, Telly Leung, Alysha Umphress, Karen Mason, Christina Bianco, Titus Burgess, Jonathan Groff, Barbara Walsh, Len Cariou, Celeste Holm, Uzo Aduba, Lea Delaria, Cheyenne Jackson, Mary Testa, Tony Yazbeck, George Lee Andrews, Nicole Parker, Elizabeth Stanley, and Julia Murney. Voice coaching credits include Tribeca and Toronto Film Festival selection Greetings from Tim Buckley (2013) starring Penn Badgley, and Twentieth Century Fox film Joy (2015) starring Jennifer Lawrence and Edgar Ramirez.

As an opera singer, Fellman has performed Falstaff, Valentin, Rigoletto, Silvio, The Father from Hansel and Gretel, Marcello, The Barber, Tarquinias, Germont, Dr. Falke and The Balladeer from Paul Bunyan with such companies as Florida Grand Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Chautauqua Opera, Utah Festival Opera, IU Opera Theatre, and Opera Illinois. Ray also had the pleasure of originating the role of Mr. Monroe in the world premiere of Thea Musgrave's Pontalba at New Orleans Opera for the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the Louis and Clark Expedition. As a concert soloist, highlights include an all Mozart program with the St. Louis Symphony as well as Lerner and Lowe, and Kurt Weill concerts with the Fort Wayne Philharmonic. With the Chautauqua Symphony Ray performed Verdi's Il balen del suo sorriso with Met conductor Joseph Colaneri and later that season, Andrew Lloyd Weber's The Music of the Night under the baton of Broadway pops conductor Jack Everly. Ray was also a soloist in Vaughan Williams' Serenade to Music honoring Raymond Leppard's Retirement with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.

As an actor Ray has taken on the role of Cosme McMoon in the Cardinal Stage Company's production of Souvenir and also portrayed Josef Mashkan in the Jewish Theatre of Bloomington's production of Old Wicked Songs.

As an educator, Ray has worked with students at NYU's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, Anderson University, University of Southern Mississippi, Wright State University, the University of Wyoming and the Torggler Vocal Institute in Newport News, Virginia. He also received tenure from Indiana University in 2013. Since the start of the B.F.A. in Musical Theatre at IU in 2007, Ray’s students have been seen on and off Broadway, as well as with national tours, multiple regional and summer stock theatres, theme parks and cruise ships.

Ray has received the Richard F. Gold Career Grant from the Shoshana Foundation as well as a career grant from the Anna Sosenko Trust, and in 2015 was named an Indiana University Jacobs School of Music Distinguished Alumnus of the Singing Hoosiers. Ray holds degrees in Piano and Voice from the IU Jacobs School of Music.