Ian Ruskin
Actor, Writer and Social Activist
I trained as an actor in London at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and performed in England for 15 years. I came to Los Angeles in 1985 and worked primarily in television; usually guest starring as the intelligent bad guy in shows such as “Murder She Wrote”, “Scarecrow and Mrs. King” and “MacGyver”. This work paid the rent but did not in any way fulfill the dream that I had as a student at RADA – to work in plays that would affect an audience. As a young actor in repertory theatre I was in great classical plays and in the works of the most exciting new playwrights, in plays that could not only move audiences but give them something to reflect on as they went home. This was not happening on the sound stage of “MacGyver”…
Biography
Following drama school I worked in English repertory theatre, in London and in film and television. Among highlights were a Commedia dell’arte production in Birmingham, playing Jack in Jack the Ripper in London, six weeks in Wales filming Michael Mann’s The Keep, and being part of the Lawrence Olivier King Lear for Granada Television in Manchester.
In Los Angeles, my life-long interest in social justice led me to found The Harry Bridges Project in 2000. I produced two radio documentaries and wrote the one-man play From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks. I then produced three documentary films and another play To Begin the World Over Again: the Life of Thomas Paine, written with a COLA (City of Los Angeles) Fellowship. The film versions of both plays aired for multiple years on PBS. They were directed by five-time Academy Award nominee and two-time winner Haskell Wexler, because he believed in the power of these two stories.
I am completing my latest play Magic and Lightning: into the Mind of Nikola Tesla following previews in Los Angeles, Anchorage and Philadelphia. Upcoming bookings, pandemic permitting, will include the Greenville Chautauqua Festival, South Carolina, the Serbian Embassy in Washington, D.C. and the Serbian Consulate in New York. Past performances of the Bridges and Paine plays include the English and Scottish Parliaments in London and Edinburgh, Faneuil Hall, Boston, Joe’s Pub at the Public Theatre, New York, Grand Performances, Los Angeles, The American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, and The Warner Grand Theatre, San Pedro,
A core of my work is on-going performances of the Bridges and Paine, and soon Tesla, plays at Los Angeles County Community Colleges, including East LA, Harbor, LA City, LA Valley, Cerritos, El Camino and Pierce Colleges. The Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture and the Dolores Huerta Labor Institute have funded many of these performances so that they can be offered free to these and other Colleges.