Stemming from an immigrant family in Los Angeles, Ryan is an NYC-based interdisciplinary director merging image, language, and action to generate humanist stories of underrepresented voices for the stage and camera. He critically engages audiences in the complexities of human realities in order to advance compassion and action toward our struggles of social relations.
More recently, Ryan directed staged readings of Yao Bian's The Waking at the 2024 Talking It Out Festival and Charlie Meyers's Saving Grace at the 2024 Confluence New Play Festival. He also directed, wrote, and produced Interiors (2023), a narrative short film. Interiors was an official selection in the Narrative Short category at the 2023 St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase. Upcoming directing projects include and the world premiere of Now Boarding at the 2024 International Human Rights Art Festival and the short film Odd One Out.
Ryan also assistant directed the world premieres of Comfort by Neil LaBute and 塵埃 (The Dust) by Taiwanese playwright 徐堰鈴 (Yen-Ling Hsu). He has had the privilege of working with Obie-winning Peculiar Works Project, Heidi Latsky Dance, Mississippi Choctaw and Cherokee visual artist Jeffrey Gibson, interdisciplinary artist 김채송 (Chaesong Kim), Federico Restrepo and the Loco7 Dance and Puppet Theatre Company, Annamaria Pileggi, and former MR@Judson Artist Gabriella Carmichael among others. He has had his works featured and performed at venues such as the St. Louis Actors’ Studio, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, The Tank, New Museum of Contemporary Art, Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, the Astor Alive! Festival and institutions such as Grinnell College, Trinity College (Connecticut), and Washington University in St. Louis.
As an artist-scholar and educator, Ryan is a lecturer at Washington University in St. Louis and a teaching artist at the Center of Creative Arts. He has also presented his research and convened scholar panels at the ASTR, ATHE, and NASPA conferences. Ryan completed his MA in Theatre and Performance Studies as a Chancellor's Graduate Fellow at Washington University in St. Louis and his BA with honors in Theatre and Dance as a Posse Scholar at Grinnell College.