Jon Bastian
Company Member, Graphic Designer, Webmaster

To TCR audiences, Jon is best known for a series of mostly silent but very physical roles, most recently as Duna the Bear in The Pension Grillparzer. Prior to that, he appeared as The Ghost of Christmas Future in A Christmas Carol, the Riverdancing Officer in The Comedy of Errors and the gothesque Dreamer in Camino Real. Behind the scenes, as the piano player for Something About Love, The Dreamer in Camino Real, the Spartan Herald in TCR's reading for The Lysistrata Project, the Riverdancing Officer in The Comedy of Errors and, most recently, as The Ghost of Christmas Future, among other characters, in the world-premiere musical of A Christmas Carolhe is TCR's graphic designer and web guru, has run sound for both Picasso at the Lapin Agile and Twelfth Night and was the producer of last season's world-premiere production of Mayo Simon's Split.

Jon became  hooked on theatre as a musician for the west coast premiere of Philemon, then acted in and directed various productions while studying playwriting and theatre history, and co-wrote the bilingual short film Who Gets to Water the Grass? for director Luis Meza. His joining a playwriting workshop run by the late Jerry Fey (now known as the Golden West Playwrights) led to numerous productions of short plays in local venues and the world premiere of his Civil War black comedy Noah Johnson had a Whore... at South Coast Repertory, directed by Martin Benson. The play won SCR's California New Plays Prize and the production won seven Drama-Logue awards, including playwriting, and was a finalist for the PEN West Literary Award for Drama.

After SCR, Jon won a fellowship in the Chesterfield Film Company's Writers Film Project, more of his short plays were presented in Los Angeles theatres and his full length historical drama Petty Treasons was produced at the Road Theatre, which also presented Guerilla Cookies, first at the NoHo Arts Fest, then in full production. He contributed a segment to the omnibus indie film Random Shooting in LA, directed by Jeff Delman, wrote the upcoming screenplay DekkaLodge, was an invited participant in Foundation Films' developmental workshop and a founding member of the Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights. He survived a stint in the television industry, writing the episode "Hoop Dreams," for Aaron Spelling's 7th Heaven, an experience which drove him right back to theatre. During 2001, he was an invited playwright participant in the Lincoln Center West Directors' Workshop and is currently co-director of the Golden West Playwrights, as well as a member of The Company Rep Playwrights Lab and the Interact Theatre Playwrights Workshop. Jon is a member of the Writers Guild of America West and, since 1999, has been publisher, editor, contributing writer and reviewer for Filmmonthly.com and its affiliated websites, OnTheBox.com and fmSound.com.

The Heretics of Alexandria (a top ten winner in the 2001 New Century Writers Award), was produced in August 2002 as a part of The Company Rep's new playreading series, and his farce Screamin' Monkey Love! will be appearing at the Hybrid Internet Lounge in July, 2004.