Get to Know: Ken Ryan

Meet SF Ballet’s HEAD OF PROPERTIES

Ken Ryan has worked at SF Ballet since December 1982 and has been the Head of Properties since February 2002. In this role, he manages a team who helps keep rehearsals and performances running smoothly. It's a position that reaches nearly every nook and cranny of backstage life. This means facilitating elements locally and internationally of crews, dancers, orchestra, as well as coordinating with the Head Carpenter, Electrician, Sound, Hair and Make-up, and Women's and Men's Wardrobe. You might even recognize him handing out the bouquets to the dancers at the curtain calls on opening nights!

To offer a glimpse into his personality beyond the theater, we invited him to take the Proust Questionnaire—a 19th-century parlor game-turned-classic Q&A that reveals personal insights through a series of reflective, revealing questions. In true SF Ballet fashion, we’ve added a bit of a ballet twist.

SAN FRANCISCO BALLET: What is your idea of perfect happiness?

KEN RYAN: Spending the first week of May in Lourdes with the Order of Malta. I am a Knight in the Order of Malta, a lay religious order of the Roman Catholic Church that dates back to the first crusades. The Order started with building a hospital to care for the pilgrims coming to the holy land on pilgrimage. Now we serve the poor and the sick and defend the Roman Catholic faith. One way we serve is to bring Malades, those who are sick, to Lourdes to find their miracle. Their miracle may not be the one they are looking for, but it is the one they need. My introduction to the Order was as a Malade in May of 2001.

Who would you invite to attend the ballet with?

My wife. We have been married for 42 years. My positions with the ballet and opera have required me to be apart from her a great deal of time. To understand this, she tells people that she was a single parent. She was. I was able to do this job because I knew she was there with the boys. We need time together to balance the scale of my time with our time.

Who are your favorite choreographers?

William Forsythe, Mark Morris, Yuri Possokhov, and Christopher Wheeldon. I never know what I’m going to see from them, but I’m excited when they are in the house. I’ve had the opportunity to work with all of them multiple times. They all have a special gift.

Forsythe is able to tell a dancer what to do and how to do it and the dancer never knew they were that good.
Morris would rehearse bows in the studio – it was the last thing the audience saw and were just as important as the rest of the ballet. He would tell you something once! Remember that!
Possokhov is a wonderful original story teller, when he tells his own story it’s magical, I’m excited to see what he does with Onegin.
Wheeldon is so creative and he brings in a wonderful group of designers to create what he envisioned. The end of Act I of Cinderella is so simple and a great piece of theatrical magic.

WhAT DO YOU CONSIDER YOUR GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT?

Surviving cancer and learning life lessons from the experience. I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins Lymphoma at 39. My sons were 13, 10, and 7. Both of my parents and my siblings were all still alive. I refer to this period as the hell I put my family through. In August 1999 I started with six cycles of chemo over four months, followed by a stem cell transplant at UCSF for a month in January and February 2000 which included nine days in the ICU, and wrapped up my treatment with five weeks of radiation in June and July 2000. January 2001, I was introduced to the Order of Malta and I went to Lourdes that May.

Which LIVING PERSON DO YOU MOST ADMIRE?

God, the source of my faith. I’ve always been a church goer, but my cancer put God front and center.

What is your most treasured possession?

Time.

I started work at the Opera House in 1979, I was still in college. Before the end of 2025, I’ll be retired. People are coming up to me wondering what I will do to stay busy. I made a promise as a Knight of Malta to serve the poor and the sick. I look forward to having more time to do this. I’m also really excited about spending more time with my family and friends.