Ryan H. Reid

Ryan H. Reid was born in the small, Illinois town of Galesburg, where he found many passions as a child. Before the age eighteen he had earned a first degree black belt in the Korean martial art of Kuk Sool Won, had been ranked from the class of 2012 as the third best nationally for his football position, had been invited to join the American Boychoir boarding school in Princeton, NJ, had sung at Carnegie Hall in NYC, and was planning to attend either Princeton or Michigan, on scholarship, to play football and pursue a degree in Biology/Pre-med. But, instead of choosing any of those opportunities, he sought the one profession in which he could be any or all of those things...Ryan chose to be an actor. He spent four wonderful years at Millikin University, on a full-tuition Presidential Scholarship. While there, Ryan acted in a Millikin Mainstage production each semester, studied Shakespeare under a professor from Oxford University and at the Globe Theatre in London, represented Millikin at an economic address delivered by President Obama, by singing the national anthem, and solo-produced and starred as Ken in a production of John Logan's RED, in which all proceeds were donated to Shakespeare Corrected, a program that teaches acting and theatrical classics to inmates of the Decatur Women's Correctional Facility. He graduated Summa Cum Laude in 2016 earning both a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting and the highest honor in his program, the J. Ben Wand Prize for excellence in acting. Ryan broadened his focus after graduation. He spent the next four years studying and working as a producer, voiceover artist, director, screenwriter, and stage/film actor in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago. Simultaneously, Ryan began working more with children, as both an director/acting coach and a nanny. For work on his directorial debut, STRUNG, Ryan was awarded the Best First Time Director award "in recognition of excellence in filmmaking at the Top Shorts Film Festival" in 2020. Ryan constantly reimagines the avenues by which he may work with children in the arts, and hopes to continue to engage artistically with stories that concern themselves with adolescence, the way children are raised in Western society, the examination and redefinition of both true and toxic masculinity, and growing up with otherness, with particular focus on queerness and anti-racist narratives.