About Jonathan Wessel

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An award-winning actor, singer, and stunt-performer, Jonathan Wessel has been involved in the performing arts for his entire life, beginning with cello lessons at age 4. Jonathan always loved singing around the house and would perform for his relatives every chance he got. By age 8, Jonathan began to develop an interest in acting, which prompted him to ask his parents to add a theater program to the fine arts program they ran for home school students. As a result, Jonathan began his foray into acting, being able to have both lead and supporting roles throughout junior and senior high. After finishing high school, Jonathan continued to pursue acting by joining a community theater. It was there, at 22 years old, that Jonathan began to see acting as a career he would pursue. It was also around this time that Jonathan began taking voice lessons with former lead tenor with the Metropolitan Opera, Raymond Gibbs. Jonathan’s natural talent, combined with nearly 2 decades of music training allowed him to excel as a singer, learning and developing vocal technique extremely fast, leading Mr. Gibbs to declare, “I don’t know what to do with you.” Jonathan’s love for singing was further encouraged by singing the National Anthem at multiple pro and semi-pro sports teams in the Chicago area, giving him large audiences to perform in front of and help him learn to combat stage fright. At 25, Jonathan began to study acting, first taking commercial and audition classes at Acting Studio Chicago, and then enrolling in Green Shirt Studio’s Meisner program. It was the Meisner training that saw Jonathan’s passion for acting begin to cultivate into a skill, and it was only a few months later that Jonathan booked his first lead role in a short film titled Happy Together, a quirky rom-com of which Jonathan’s character has been compared to Napoleon Dynamite. Jonathan’s acting began to take off after that role, landing lead and supporting roles in feature films, shorts and web series around the United States. After the pandemic, Jonathan worked on a few projects before joining a touring Wild West Stunt show as the high fall performer. This took up a good portion of his summer and fall. After that short stint, Jonathan had problems finding film acting work and effectively took a break from acting. It was during this time that Jonathan joined a fire department, putting acting completely on hold while going to EMT school and graduating top of his class. Returning to acting once he finished EMT school, Jonathan was hard-pressed to find work yet again and considered quitting once again. It was at this point that Jonathan went to fire academy to become a certified firefighter. While in fire academy, Jonathan booked one of the lead roles in a student film and was blessed to be able to film in between the fire academy classes. This short film incorporated Jonathan’s gift of comedic acting with stunt work and led to him being hired as the stunt coordinator for that university’s feature film, which starred Paris Brosnan and John Rhys-Davies. Upon finishing fire academy and becoming a certified firefighter, Jonathan left for Indiana to shoot the feature film. Upon returning, the work dried up again, and Jonathan thought again about quitting acting. It was at this point that Jonathan knew he was too passionate about acting and storytelling to give up, so Jonathan refocused his ambitions toward musical theater. Jonathan is currently auditioning for shows around the country and continuing his vocal training.