Ryan Hartley

I create timeless theatrical experiences to entertain & challenge a cosmopolitan audience.

I believe that the concepts and ideals we cling to so tightly are actually illusions. What remains when we strip all of the illusions away? I believe we’re left with our bodies, our physical needs, our sexual attractions, and our inclination toward telling stories. That’s all. It is our storytelling tendency that gave rise to theater and other forms of art. It is also the source of our illusions. Therefore, I believe virtually nothing is truly sacred. I approach the creation of theater with a mixture of skepticism and empathy. My point of view prompts me to peek behind our illusions, critique them, and try my hand at dismantling them. I like to entertain my audience just as much as I like to challenge them with questions for which I have no answers. And while I do enjoy a period piece, I gravitate to contemporary material that physicalizes the bodies, the needs, the sexualities, and the storytelling of human beings in the modern world.

Ryan Hartley is a theater director, dramaturg, actor, and interior designer based in New York.

A graduate of Pepperdine University, Ryan has made a journey through musical theater and corporate-branded entertainment toward contemporary plays and new play development. He has trained with SITI Company and the Yale Summer directing intensive, and is a member of Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas. Ryan now trains with The Barrow Group in directing and acting.

Ryan is the founding artist of The New Cosmopolitans – a collaborative theater laboratory. Under this umbrella, Ryan curated the New Queer Works series of developmental readings, and most recently directed an award-winning production of Gummy Worm by Nathaniel Foster at the Hollywood Fringe Festival.

As an interior designer, Ryan is currently training at New York Institute of Art and Design, toward taking the RIDQC. He has interned under principal designer Jacob Keyes at Key Home Interiors.

Conversations with Ryan Hartley – Voyage LA