Ryan Jamaal Swain was an American actor who started out his performing career onstage before he broke through with a role in a groundbreaking LGBT television series. Born and raised in Birmingham, AL, Swain appeared in productions with Alabama Dance Academy, Alabama Ballet, Red Mountain Theatre Company, Birmingham Children's Theatre, and Virginia Samford Theatre as a child. He studied acting at Howard University before earning his masters at the British American Academy in Oxford, UK. Swain appeared in national productions of "Spring Awakening," "Six Degrees of Separation," and "Thoughts of a Colored Man." In 2014, Swain wrote and starred in "A Negro Writer," a one-man show based on the life of Langston Hughes. After years on the stage, Swain got his big break in 2018, when he was cast in a lead role on Ryan Murphy and Steven Canals drama series "Pose" (FX, 2018), set in New York City's underground ballroom scene in the 1980s. The show made headlines before it even premiered, due to it sporting the largest LGBT cast ever assembled for a scripted TV series in the U.S.