Ryan Dillon

Dillon was born on May 25, 1988, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As a young puppeteer, he came to the attention of Sesame Street producers when he attended an audition as a high school student.^{[citation needed]} In 2005, he took time away from school during his senior year to participate in the production of season 37. In 2013, he succeeded Kevin Clash as the performer for Elmo following Clash's resignation from Sesame Street in November 2012. Beginning in 2019, he succeeded Richard Hunt as Don Music.^{[citation needed]}

Dillon has taught classes in television puppetry at Pennsylvania State University, and various schools and centers in the United States.^[3] He has served as a puppet performer for Kraft MilkBite commercials, Julie's Greenroom, The Muppets Take the Bowl, The Muppets Take the O2, the Nickelodeon webseries Ask Sylvia, and John Tartaglia's ImaginOcean (2010).^{[citation needed]}

In March 2017, Dillon was nominated for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in Children's Programming.^[4][5]