Austin — The bus had just rolled into Grand Forks, North Dakota minutes prior, and Ben Mayne is enjoying an or hour or two of rest before it’s show time all over again.

For the touring production of “South Pacific,” it’s show number 40 with more than 200 left to go, all across the United States. Mayne, a recent Texas State University theatre graduate who plays the role of Lt. Buzz Adams in the musical, is learning quickly the ways of the road.

Four months ago, after all, he was still a student in San Marcos.

“It’s extremely surreal. I did not expect something like this at all,” Mayne said. “It’s surreal to jump straight into that environment and be picked up and move all over the country for nine months.”

The newest production of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s Pulitzer Prize winning musical will make its debut in Austin at the Bass Concert Hall Nov. 8-13 as part of the Broadway Across America - Austin series. Tickets are more information are available at www.southpacificontour.com.

It is based on the 2008 Tony Award winning Lincoln Center Theater production, directed by Bartlett Sher. Based on James Michener's Pulitzer Prize winning book Tales of the South Pacific, Rodgers & Hammerstein's “South Pacific” has music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and a book by Oscar Hammerstein II and Joshua Logan.

Set on a tropical island during World War II, the musical tells the sweeping romantic story of two couples — US Navy nurse Nellie Forbush and French plantation owner Emile de Becque and Navy Airman Joe Cable and a young local native girl Liat — and how their happiness is threatened by the realities of war and by their own prejudices.

Mayne plays Buzz Adams, a young, hot-shot pilot sent on missions others consider too dangerous. To prepare for the role, he watched several war movies, including Terrence Mallick’s “The Thin Red Line,” and read “The Things they Carried” by Tim O’Brien, all to gain perspective on young men at war and the personal relationships built between those characters. 

Mayne also performs as a member of the Navy’s Construction Batallion in the production.

Things have moved quickly for him. After auditioning for the South Pacific” and “Legally Blonde” in March, he graduated in May and moved to New York the next week.

Within weeks, he’d won the role for “South Pacific.”

“I moved to New York and was just interested in getting a job and getting settled — a real job like working at a restaurant or something to pay the bills. I was thinking, ‘get out of college and get my feet on the ground,’” Mayne said. “I just knew the right people and they got my foot in the door.”

According to Mayne, his sudden success is very much a testament to the work being done by Texas State University Musical Theatre director Kaitlin Hopkins and others within the department.

“That department is booming. Kaitlin's goal was to make Texas State one of the top musical theatre programs in the United States within five years,” Mayne said. “It’s been two-and-a-half years, and she’s on her way.”

Mayne was a junior at Dripping Springs High School more interested in band and choir when three teachers talked him into doing a musical. Reluctantly, he agreed.

He credits much of his success, and initial interest in musical theatre, to teachers Ginger Morris, Virginia Volpe and Kelly Bales.

“I ended up having a wonderful time. So the next year, I signed up to do it again and worked my butt off during that show. And I’ve been really into musical theatre since then,” Mayne said.