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. These plays not only moved audiences, but gave 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, and film, theatre and television in London. 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 Laurence Olivier’s 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, for which I produced two radio documentaries and wrote the one-man play From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks: The Life and Time of Harry Bridges. I then produced three documentary films and another one-man 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 Haskell Wexler, five-time Academy Award nominee and two-time winner, because he believed in the power of these two stories.
I have completed my latest play Magic and Lightning: into the Mind of Nikola Tesla, following previews in Los Angeles, Anchorage, Greenville and Philadelphia. Upcoming bookings, pandemic permitting, will include 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 in Boston, Joe’s Pub at the Public Theatre in New York, Grand Performances in Los Angeles, The American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, and The Warner Grand Theatre in San Pedro.
A core of my work is on-going performances of the Bridges and Paine plays, and soon the Tesla play, 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.
Ongoing Projects
From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks:
The Life and Times
of Harry Bridges
I was first introduced to Bridges when I was cast to play him in “Citizenship: the Harry Bridges Story” in 1994. I was inspired to discover a man who had spent his life fighting for equality in very practical ways. He saw unions as the way to bring American workers basic rights of living wages, job safety, health care, and pensions. He fought against racial and religious prejudice and discrimination, often challenging his own union members.
He viewed this work as a world-wide struggle, and was unimpressed with positions of status. He was the same person meeting President Nixon as he was drinking with his fellow longshoremen. He was also an imperfect man with his own personal challenges. That is what makes his story all the more compelling.
Writing this one-man play opened up my eyes as to where to look for news worth listening to, the cruelties of capitalism and the challenges to democracy in America. His deep impact on the American labor movement and the lives of all Americans calls out to be known, understood and celebrated.
To Begin the World Over Again:
The Life of Thomas Paine
When friends suggested that I consider writing a play about Thomas Paine, I read my first biography about him, and knew that I had found my next project. The more I read, the more shocking it was to realize the extent to which he has largely been written out of our history books. I was astounded by the highs and lows of his life, played out on a world stage, and with the fates of nations at stake. Perhaps above all, I was struck by his determination to speak the truth as he saw it, and to hell with the consequences.
I consider him to be the one truly radical Founding Father, and one of the great wordsmiths of the English language. He has introduced me to Deism and to the fight to bring true democracy to this Nation. This fight was there from its very beginning, and still faces us today, but our world would be a less enlightened place, were it not for this man.
Magic and Lightning:
Into the Mind of Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla was one of the most extraordinary geniuses and strangest men in history. He was another immigrant to America, another greatly misunderstood man, but this time a magical scientific wizard - thus the play’s title. So, now an English actor must try to understand, at least a little, about the science whirling around in this amazing mind, where machines to change the world were constructed and operated with his eidetic memory. He was a challenging character to write a play about!
I have a sense of the man, and at least some of the forces, desires and compulsions that drove him. I suspect that I will spend the rest of my life working to understand that science, step by step. As more and more of the world is discovering this man, new potential audiences are growing every day, from Steampunks to Physicists, Space Engineers to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs - not to mention Gen Alpha and Gen Z! This will be a mind-opening play, not only for my audiences, but for me as well.