Life & Work with Jonah Weston of Downtown Arts district

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jonah Weston.

Hi Jonah, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I was born in Northern California near Tahoe, but raised in Western Montana and Northern Idaho. I started drama classes when I was 11 years old and it just kind of stuck. I took classes 4 days a week until I was 16 all the time auditioning and performing at the Lake City Playhouse, our local community theatre in Coeur d’ Alene Idaho, as well as at North Idaho College. When I was 14 I began working backstage at the Cd’A Summer Theatre because I wanted to know every aspect of how theatre was created. At 17 I made my professional stage debut at Spokane Interplayers Ensemble in Spokane Washington, just over the border from where I grew up. I moved to Seattle shortly after my 18th birthday to continue pursuing a career in live theatre. After a time I moved to Portland Oregon where I lived and worked for 11 years. In that time my identity as an actor and theatre maker in general was formed and molded by some amazing individuals. Keith Scales who cast me in my first production at the Classic Greek Theatre of Oregon, the late great Sam Mowry who guided and nurtured my beginnings as a voice actor, Jane Unger the founding Artistic Director of Profile Theatre Co. which is dedicated to an entire season of one playwrights work. Pat Patton who directed my first show there. The late great Tobias Andersen who also took me under his wing and helped me grow. Along with an innumerable number of great artists who I collaborated with over the years. In 2010 I started my own theatre company and mounted a solo performance of a little known Shel Silverstein piece called The Devil And Billy Markham which took off in unexpected ways and led me to self producing and touring to several cities throughout the country. I moved to Los Angeles in 2018 because I felt I was outgrowing a city that didn’t have room for me anymore, as much as I loved and still love Portland.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I don’t think the path of an actor or any kind of artist in any medium is ever a smooth road. It has been bumpy, lots of ups and downs, but perseverance and love of what you do is the driving force. There are always struggles. In every market you have to make yourself known, not only as a talent worthy of being recognized and invited to participate, but as a human being and a collaborator who can bring something to the table and help create a safe and comfortable atmosphere with your ensemble. And I use that word ensemble to include every part of the process, whether it is theatre or film. The director, the designers, your fellow actors, and every member of the crew are vitally important. My first years in the theatre as a teenager I spent backstage. Building sets, running lights, leading a stage crew, and eventually as a Stage Manager for several productions. Every member of the ensemble from the box office to the stage manager to the director to the actors onstage, and very importantly the stage/film crew who never get enough praise and rarely any time in the spotlight. Everyone is equally important, and nothing happens without the collaboration of all. That is one of the most important lessons I ever learned, and one of the chief lessons I try to teach when I am in the position to do so. The struggles are self doubt, which can be healthy, but also detrimental if you allow it to take over. Also being on the outside, you have to earn the trust of people to allow you to enter a space where we all by necessity, have to let our guards down and be vulnerable. And I haven’t even started addressing the struggles of the business side of being a professional actor which no one teaches you, and is nearly impossible to prepare for.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I wouldn’t call myself a specialist, I have endeavored all my career to be as consummate a performer as I can be. I have worked with texts as varied as Sophocles, Euripides, Shakespeare, Chekov, Shaw, Pinter, Stoppard, Miller, O’Neill, but I found my true passion was working with new texts, in collaboration with playwrights on original scripts. I have had the great fortune of very talented individuals writing new works with me in mind to play the characters and allowing me to offer feedback as an actor in the rehearsal process. This is some of the most rewarding work I have ever had the opportunity to do. I am also a voice actor which is a whole other can of worms. I came into it almost by accident when I was 23 years old and waiting tables to make ends meet. By chance I waited on a voice over agent who asked if I was an actor and if I was interested in pursuing voice acting, in a studio, behind a microphone. I said yes and that is how I met my voice acting mentor Sam Mowry, who sadly passed almost two years ago. But he was a great friend and an incredible teacher. I have had the great fortune of working somewhat steadily in that arena, which is as I said, a whole different world…

How do you define success?
My definition of success has evolved over the nearly 30 years I have been doing this work professionally. When I was a young man and a student, I was determined to be on broadway, and to be a movie star. I thought that was what success was. Over the years I have come to realize that success is something entirely different. I was in play called Biloxi Blues by Neil Simon some years ago. Directed by my dear friend Pat Patton at Profile Theatre in Portland OR. After our opening weekend, a man stopped his car in the middle of the road to shout out that he had seen our production and thought it was fantastic. Not just me, all of us. Another time I was at an awards show for our local theatre community, I was not being honored, I was just there to support my fellows. But an older woman who I had never met or seen before approached me and told me I was one of her favorite actors and that she and her family came to see everything I was in. I was stunned, and I was sure she was mistaking me for someone else I and told her as much. She then rattled off several of the productions she had seen me in and reassured me that she knew exactly who I was and that she meant every word. That was a humbling and flattering experience. I would still love to achieve those goals I had as a young man, I would love to work in New York and London, and really anywhere in the world. To collaborate with great artists I have always looked up to. But success is not only that. Success is leaving a positive mark on someones life as a member of the audience, which I just now realize I left out in my definition of ensemble. Because we as performers, directors, designers, and crew, would be nowhere without our audience.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jonahweston.com
• Instagram: @jonahmweston
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JonahWestonActor
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@JonahWeston
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/jonah-weston-vo
• Other: https://linktr.ee/jonahwestonvo

Image Credits
Kate Holdaway
Olivia Yao
Rebecca Becker
David Kinder