Ian Ruskin

Ian Ruskin is a graduate of The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. In England, he worked in Repertory Theater and London's West End where work included the title role in Jack the Ripper, television including King Lear (1983) with Lawrence Olivier, and Michael Mann La forteresse noire (1983). In Los Angeles, his work has ranged from Murder She Wrote's Dead Man's Gold (1986) , to the acclaimed one-man play, Alan Drury's The Man Himself. He has also done extensive voice work in radio, commercials, and in over 100 films and television programs. Ian founded The Harry Bridges Project in 2000 and has written, performed and produced many plays, radio, and film documentaries. Those include From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks (2007) about labor leader Harry Bridges, and most recently To Begin the World Over Again: The Life of Thomas Paine (2016)for airing on public television in the 2016 Presidential election year distributed by NETA. The film versions of the Bridges and Paine plays were directed and shot by multi-Academy Award winner Haskell Wexler. Ian has performed each play hundreds of times to close to 100,000 people, including the Houses of Parliament, the Scottish Parliament, ACLU, The American Philosophical Society, Harvard Law School, the California Judges Association, Conway Hall in London, the Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians, and in Canada, Hawai'i, Australia, and England. To Begin the World Over Again: The Life of Thomas Paine (2016) continues Ian's mission to present the stories of forgotten and misunderstood heroes from American and European history. He is also working on having the film distributed in England, France, Canada and Australia. Paine was, after all, a citizen of the world. In 2014 Ian completed a new radio documentary A Wild Woman Sings the Blues about the life and work of Barbara Dane, and is also working on a treatment for a feature film based on the 1934 San Francisco General Strike. Ian has begun work on his next project, to write a new one-man play about "the man who invented the 20th century" Nikola Tesla. When not running the Harry Bridges Project or writing and performing new plays, Ian Ruskin is a voice over actor in Los Angeles, CA.