With the voice of an angel and the acting chops to match, Ryan Silverman is poised to have quite the bright future on the Great White Way. In just a few years he’s gone from playing supporting parts to headlining shows that include the Classic Stage Company revival of Passion and 2014’s brilliant revival of Side Show. His impressive vocal range allows him to move effortlessly between genres, musical styles and he often works in projects that range from opera to special concerts. On April 10, he’ll be part of The New York Pops’ Let’s Be Frank, a celebration of Frank Sinatra on the centennial of his birth.

We talked to Ryan about his love of Sinatra, his unique method for clearing his throat, and the parts he’d love to play on Broadway.

What can you tell us about “Let’s Be Frank”? It must be exciting to pay tribute to Sinatra at Carnegie Hall.

It is! It’s hugely exciting, I remember when Steve Reineke was talking to me about it a year ago, we were just coming up with ideas of what songs we’d want to sing, and there’s so many songs that Frank Sinatra made popular that to pick your favorites is kinda hard to do, but we’ve done it, we came up with a setlist that represents who he is. He made so many songs popular with his delivery, with his voice, so we’re gonna try to celebrate that and also bring our own voice to these songs as well, in the orchestrations a little bit, but always with the idea to pay homage to the man.

What were your favorite Sinatra songs?

I’ve always loved “I’m Gonna Live Until I Die”, it’s not as well known as some other of his songs, but it’s one of the most uptempo songs that he’s done. I’ve always loved that one and, gosh, there’s just so many…”Change Partners” I love that one, ”Love is Just Around the Corner”...

People sometimes forget Frank Sinatra was a fantastic actor too, are you a big fan of his movies as well?

I am, yeah, it’s not talked about it a lot, and that’s also what sorta brought him back. His acting re-popularized him, because he’d disappeared for a while, and people thought he’d been the American idol who now was over, but he reinvented himself with his acting. His voice changed too, which is something that’s not talked about either, if you listen to his older stuff like “East of the Sun, West of the Moon”, he’s got a very pure sound to his voice, and he came back and it sounded like he’d smoked a few cigarettes, had a few drinks, his voice was lower, richer and that also made people pay attention again.

Speaking of drinks, do you still use vodka to clear your throat?

Yes! (Laughs) I swear by it, some people use apple cider vinegar, I use vodka. Vodka’s more fun than apple cider vinegar.

Which ties in perfectly with the concert series you’ve been doing called “Music of the Mad Men Era”...

Yeah, that’s a concert I have been doing with Steve Reineke for quite a bit, a little over a year. It’s sort of the same style, sort of Rat Pack-era music, we sing a whole lotta things, I sing a couple of Tom Jones numbers, “I Who Have Nothing”, that huge power ballad which I sing at the end of act one. It’s a great show, the audience loves it, it’s upbeat, it’s fun, it’s loose, something like what I imagine “Let’s Be Frank” is going to be like as well, and it’s one of the most popular concerts they’ve done, because the audiences love it. We’ve done it all over too, in Vancouver, all over the US, I’m going to Atlanta, Toronto as well.

Is it easy for you to go from doing opera, to rock musicals, to symphonic concerts, to Broadway show tunes? How do you train your voice for that?

It does take work and a certain level of concentration, because even doing Side Show, that was really low for me, and my voice is quite low, but doing all these concerts you’re always belting something very tenor-y, in this Mad Men concert for example I’m singing a high Tom Jones ballad, and then I was doing Side Show which was a very different style of singing, very low. It takes a little to reprogram your voice and set it lower, after Side Show I did the workshop for this beautiful musical called Somewhere in Time, which again was very high, but more modern, with much less vibrato, so that took me a little while of practicing, to get out of the Side Show frame of mind.

When you’re doing a revival or playing a character onstage that was originated in a film, do you go back and listen to the cast recordings or watch the films, or do you approach the character from a completely fresh point of view?

It really depends, for Side Show I didn’t listen to the original, but for Somewhere In Time I watched the movie just to get a sense of what it was, and what it is that people fell in love with. Because there is something that people love about Somewhere In Time, there’s something charming about the character and I wanted to see what Christopher Reeve brought to it, and it was helpful for me to watch that. For Side Show I didn’t do it because I had an idea of who this guy was, and they were changing the script so much that I thought it’d be best to have a completely fresh take on it, because there wasn’t going to be much of the original left to begin with.

Side Show was so beautiful too, it was so sad to see it close so fast!

It was gorgeous, wasn’t it?

Yes, I’d seen you a few years ago in the astonishing Classic Stage production of Passion which you did for a limited run. So when you have shows that close so fast, it’s probably really important to have cast recordings that’ll allow people to discover the shows.

Cast recordings are the only way they can discover the shows, I guess that’s one of the great things about musical theatre. I think both these cast recordings were done so well, they were both done to make the audience feel like they were watching the show. When you’re listening to them they feel “live”, they feel like they’re happening onstage, and I think that’s a good accomplishment because listening to it you get a sense of the scope of the show, and you can kinda go on this journey. Certainly with Passion, because it’s basically the whole show, so you get a sense of what the show must have been like, I think that’s important, especially for these two shows that were so beautiful and done for such a short amount of time.

When I saw you play Terry in Side Show I thought it made sense, because like Giorgio in Passion, they both seem to be very unaware about the feelings of women around them…

Yeah, that’s true, and Giorgio was driven by trying to do the right thing, and I think Terry wanted to do the right thing too, even though not many people will agree with me, he was driven by the promise he made to those girls and sticking to it, and along the way he discovered those feelings, how do you fall in love with somebody who’s attached? I think both of them were driven by a pure idea at the beginning, and they lost their way as the show went on, so I agree they had similarities.

Does this have anything to do with how you choose what characters you want to play?

Not really, I choose characters based on what I, Ryan, would relate to, things that I can hold on to, but through the most part it’s really about discovering through the process of rehearsals, who this person is and what I can bring to it.

You had your big Broadway break playing Raoul in The Phantom of the Opera, would you like to play the Phantom at some point?

I don’t know...it would be nice. That’s a good question though, maybe not now, I’m not interested in revisiting that now, but maybe at some point, it would be nice to get the chance. It’s a commitment you know, you get there and you’re in that makeup chair for an hour every day, that’s a pretty big thing.

I’m asking because you’ve played Billy Flynn in Chicago, Tony in West Side Story and also Fiyero in Wicked, so the Phantom seems like the one you’re missing to have played the biggest parts for male actors. Are there any other iconic parts you’d like to play?

You know what, it’s funny, now that I’ve had the opportunity to get to do these new shows, once you have the opportunity to create something it’s hard to go back, of course you have to at some point. Getting to do Terry for example, even though it was a revival, was a new script and his character was so different that I felt I was creating something new, character that hadn’t been done before. But, I would love to get to do Max de Winter in Rebecca one day. We were supposed to do it, Jill Pace and I were cast as the leads a few years ago when it fell apart. We were about to start rehearsals on a Monday and Sunday night we got an email saying the show was cancelled because of the investors. It was pretty shady...so that would be nice to get to do some day. That is a pretty heavy character to do as well.

What kind of advice would you give to young performers who want to continue improving themselves?

I would say the biggest thing is to just keep practicing, it sounds typical but it’s so true. When I started out in Canada it took me a while to commit to the fact that I was going to be an actor/singer, it kinda terrified me. I was doing it but I wasn’t truly committed to it because the thought of saying that out loud was sorta terrifying, that held me back for a while, but then I came to New York and saw the immense pool of talent and how much work people were doing and the commitment and dedication they put to it, I was like “whoa, if I want to succeed I’ll have to do the same thing”. When I did that it was like a light went on and I found the passion and joy in it, it was all about working hard and keeping practicing, training, and that’s what made me fall in love with it. I discovered I was holding myself back by not jumping into it with both feet, if you have the passion you need to jump in and just start swimming.

For more information about Let's Be Frank visit The New York Pops' official website.