Ryan William Downey

Ryan William Downey is a playwright, actor, musician, and producer who was born in Elyria, Ohio in 1984 and now resides and works in Brooklyn, NY where he currently serves on the board of The Exponential Festival and as Associate Artistic Director of Title:Point, resident theatre company at The Silent Barn. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Studies from Kent State University where he studied playwriting under Marya Bednerik, acting under Chuck Ritchie, classic performance styles under Terry Burgler and Vincent Dowling, and theatre history under Dr. Rosemary Bank. His first experience in experimental theatre came under the tutelage of Ping Chong, for his play Blind Ness at LaMaMa in 2004, for which he learned puppeteering and how to develop original theatrical work with an ensemble of writers, actors, and technicians. He relocated to New York City in 2006 and shortly after joined a small writing group that included fellow playwrights Theresa Buchheister and Adam Burnett. This precipitated his first collaborative work, Salish, co-written with Ms. Buchheister and produced by Title:Point, Salish was performed in excerpt at DIxon Place and in full production at The Silent Barn. He then conceived of a collaborative piece developed with Title:Point's ensemble titled Everything of Any Value, a psychedelic collage of original work and deconstructed text from Italian and Russian Futurist texts, which was performed at Panoply Performance Lab, The Silent Barn, and AS220 in Providence, RI. He co-wrote, Never Odd or Even, developed at the Pilot Balloon Residency in Lawrence, KS, the CATCH series at Invisible Dog Art Center, as well as a residency at HB Studios, and was produced by Title:Point at The Brick in Brooklyn, NY. His most distinguished work is Biter, which ran in sequence with Spencer T. Campbell's Every Time I Turn Around for a limited run in Vital Joint, and was later revived for a sold out run as part of The Exponential Festival. His plays Persistent Dream Body and The Assassination of Julius Caesar have been performed at Secret Project Robot, Dixon Place, and in the Fresh Ground Pepper series, he co-wrote SPACEtruck for the The Lost Horizons Night Market. He has been awarded grants three times from The Mental Insight Foundation, which awards artists whose work explores mental health issues in experimental forms. As an actor, Mr. Downey has appeared on the HBO series GIrls, provided the voice of Hoopa (Unbound) in Pokemon the Movie: Hoopa and the Clash of Ages, appeared in A Suicide Bombing by Invitation Only with Lars Jan and Early Morning Opera at The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Dreary Coast by Jeff Stark, an immersive public performance on The Gowanus Canal, Field 309 at Incubator Arts Project, The MInd KIng by RIchard Foreman at Vtial Joint, East River Hotel by Jeff Wiseman at Theatre for the New City and MIss Chthonic Star Dream Pageant by Ric Royer and Psychic Readings Company in Baltimore and NYC, among many others. He also served as a Company Member and Resident Composer/Music Director for Ohio Shakespeare Festival for three years. In addition to his theatrical work, he plays guitar in Brooklyn punk band Chat Logs and composes music for theatre and film under his own name.