Ryan Hartley

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

I approach the creation of theater with a mixture of skepticism and empathy. Rather than make theater explicitly as a form of social work, I make theater because it's fun and it's good for us - to engage in theater as artist or audience. I expressly look for collaborators who enjoy the act of rigorously making theater, who enjoy theater as a form of art, who believe that theater is sufficient as an art form to have a place in our lives. I believe all we really have are 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.

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, and will take the RIDQC this year.

Ryan is currently seeking New York-based collaborators for a series of upcoming projects.

Conversations with Ryan Hartley – Voyage LA