T. Ryder Smith

T. Ryder Smith is an American actor born on March 9, 1958, in New York state, who has maintained a long-term residence in New York City. His career spans stage, film, television, and voice work, with a particular concentration in avant-garde theatre.

Smith's Broadway appearances span from 2008 to 2017 and include three productions, all at Lincoln Center. He was part of the original American company of War Horse and appeared in the 2009 revival of Equus, which starred Daniel Radcliffe and Richard Griffiths. He also performed in the world premiere of Oslo, a production that earned its ensemble cast a 2017 Obie Award for Outstanding Ensemble Cast.

Beyond Broadway, Smith has participated in world premiere productions in New York City of works by playwrights including Richard Foreman, David Greenspan, Katori Hall, and Anne Washburn, as well as Sarah Ruhl's Passion Play and Dead Man's Cell Phone. His regional theatre work encompasses world premieres of plays by Sarah Ruhl, Mary Kathryn Nagle, Charles Mee, Tanya Barfield, and Doug Wright, along with work with Theater of War. In 2007, he took part in a collaboration between artist and activist Paul Chan, The Classical Theatre of Harlem, and the public-arts organization Creative Time to stage Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot in outdoor areas of New Orleans most severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Video documentation of that production and Chan's set pieces entered the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.

Smith's screen credits include a role in the film The Report and the cyber-horror film Brainscan, in which he played the character known as The Trickster. His television guest appearances include Bull, Hunters, The Blacklist, Elementary, Nurse Jackie, Blue Bloods, Law and Order SVU, and the PBS American Experience series The Abolitionists. He also appears in Marie Losier's experimental short film The Ontological Cowboy, which was shown at the 2006 Whitney Biennial, as well as experimental short films by Rachel Rose, Redmond Entwistle, and Lawrence Krauser. He appears as himself in MindFLUX, a documentary about theatre artist Richard Foreman.

As a voice actor, Smith provides the voices of Baron Ünderbheit and Otto Aquarius on the animated series The Venture Bros. He voiced the character Sander Cohen in the videogame BioShock and reprised that role in the BioShock Infinite downloadable content Burial at Sea. He also participates in the annual Bloomsday readings of James Joyce's Ulysses on the Pacifica radio station WBAI.

Smith's awards include a 2021 Audie Award for Best Non-Fiction Audiobook as narrator of Fire in Paradise, the 2017 Obie Award for Outstanding Ensemble Cast for Oslo, a 2007 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble Cast for Lebensraum, and a 2007 Craig Noel Award for Outstanding Lead Performance for Lincolnesque at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego. He also received a 2001 Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Solo Performer for Underneath the Lintel.