Oz Club President Ryan Bunch was presented with the 46th annual, The International Wizard of Oz Club’s L. Frank Baum Memorial Award during the Club’s 2024 National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Ryan saw the 1939 MGM Wizard of Oz film on television as a child, prompting his initial interest in Baum’s magical land. When his mother found the Del Rey paperback editions of the Oz books in the Moorehouse Parish, Louisiana, public library, third-grader Ryan became permanently hooked.
Soon Ryan attended his first Quadling Convention in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where the 11-year-old won the Oz quiz. He then became a regular at the Ozmapolitan, Winkie, and Quadling Conventions. His talent at the piano led to him performing in Oz musicals and sing-alongs to support convention programs.
Ryan staged or participated in puppet shows at Club conventions A Day in Oz with puppeteer Bill Eubank in 1992. For his puppet version of Buratino in the Emerald City, performed at the Club’s Centennial convention in Bloomington, Indiana, he made puppets, wrote music and songs, and performed in the show; the story was based on Leonid Vladimirsky’s 1996 Russian children’s book that brought Pinocchio to Oz,
With his husband Micah Mahjoubian, Ryan cochaired Oz the National Convention 2016 in Philadelphia where he partnered with local arts organizations to create Oz-theme programs. Convention attendees explored the Oz sites in the region associated with Oz creators Ruth Plumly Thompson, John R. Neill, W.W. Denslow, Charles Santore, and Maxfield Parrish.
Ryan began climbing the Oz Club leadership ladder in 2010 when he was elected to the Board of Directors. He was elected vice president in 2016 and president in 2022. He won the Winkie Award in 2015.
Ryan has written for The Baum Bugle, served as convention registrar for many Club convention, and participated in Club projects, such as the online reading of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. He’s represented the Oz Club in media interviews, and worked on committees most notably chairing the Nominating Committee for our Board of Directors.
The combination of two loves, Oz and musical theater, led to the 2022 publication by Oxford University Press of his book, Oz and the Musical: Performing the American Fairy Tale. The book discusses Oz musicals from the 1902 Oz stage version to Wicked, with numerous stops along the way, including the MGM film version, The Wiz, Oz Club conventions, and the Land of Oz theme park on Beech Mountain, North Carolina,
Ryan received his Ph.D. in the Department of Childhood Studies at Rutgers-University Camden in 2022. He currently teaches music studies at Temple University in Philadelphia.
Congratulations to Ryan for a lifetime of advancing appreciation for Oz and service to the Club!
