Ryan James Moskalick
Hi there!
My name is Ryan James Moskalick and I’m an Indianapolis-based actor and theatre artist.
My theatrical interests include boundary-pushing theatre that alters the format of what we call “theatre” and work centered around mental health and queer stories. More recently I’ve developed an interest in reimagining classical theatre and seeing how modern identities can fit into these stories. I’ve gotten the opportunity to train with a diverse group of theatre artists from all over the world and hope to continue challenging my personal ideas of what theatre can be.
Please feel free to take a look around at some of my past projects, or peruse my blog to see what I might be cooking up in the future. If you’d like to work with me, you can find my headshot and resume as well as my contact info.
Kick off your shoes. Stay a while. We’re all friends here!
-RJM
Using Theatre as a Tool for Personal Growth
As a theatre artist one of my bigger interests is using the art of theatre to discuss mental health. I find that mindfulness work helps us better understand how we as people interact with the world around us, which in turn helps with our ability to tell real and compelling stories to an audience. I believe I’ve come to this realization from the ways my growth as an actor and my growth as a person dealing with trauma have been so interconnected over the years.
The beginning of my collegiate theatre career happened to also be the beginning of my going to talk therapy. Throughout the next few years I found that the work I was putting in my therapy sessions was helping me grow confidence in my acting, which would then unlock new discoveries that could then circle back and apply to my therapy work. The work in my Linklater voice classes in college specifically allowed me to address pieces of myself I was hiding from the world and my therapy work further helped me find those hidden pieces and find ways to bring them to the forefront. Since theatre and acting is all about vulnerability and being unafraid to share your authentic self, my acting classes and performances were excellent places to practice showing my whole self and unlearning the unhealthy thought patterns that were holding me back from making the strides in life that I wanted to.
This isn’t to say that the work is done, of course. What’s beautiful about the work you do in therapy and the work you do as an actor is that no matter where you are, growth is always possible. I still am finding new weaknesses in my mindfulness and theatrical work and exploring those weaknesses can be so freeing and fulfilling once you’ve emerged on the other side, despite the moments of frustration in between.
In sum, I wouldn’t be where I am as an actor without therapy, and I wouldn’t have made the progress in therapy as quickly as I did if I wasn’t doing theatre alongside it. Life is very weird and everything is connected!
