Jonah C. Priour ’09

If you’ve ever seen a Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club production, you’ve likely seen Jonah C. Priour ’09 on stage. The actor, whose contributions to Harvard theater recently won him the Jonathan Levy Award, has performed in almost all of the venues on campus, as well as major shows such as “Children of Eden” and “The Hyacinth Macaw.”

Remarking on the sheer number of productions he has starred in, Priour says, “I’d say there are about two big letters of apology that I have to send to my TFs every semester.”

Performing on stage has always been one of Priour’s passions.

“I was raised in a very small town in Texas, and around those parts I was known as the thespian guy,” he says. When Priour heard that about 10 to 20 student-run theater productions are shown every semester at Harvard, he began to seriously consider attending the college.

While still a high school student, Priour saw a play for the first time at Harvard, an experience which proved to be surprising.

“It was in the basement of Adams and there were two theater lights, and I was sitting next to pipes that were running, and there was traffic right outside the windows,” he says, referencing a production held in the Adams House Pool Theatre.

“This was my representation of Harvard theater. But I thought that as long as there were people creating and doing what they love, then that was all I wanted.”

At Harvard, Priour has been involved in an enormous variety of venues, from small-scale productions to those held on the Loeb Mainstage. “I’ve had the honor or the luck to fall upon most of the spaces in Harvard, probably mostly because I did way too many shows most semesters,” he says.

“I’ve been in the Radcliffe Sunken Garden, which is like this little patch of grass, and the difference between that and the Mainstage, which is right across the street, is huge,” he explains.

“But it’s interesting because you see a lot of the same people in the same places, and I really get the feeling here that there’s this sort of vibe that’s like, ‘Let’s take a space and make the best artistic project that we can out of it.’”

For Priour, stage work is about a collective experience rather than the individual performance. Describing his feelings following a typical performance, Priour says, “I’ve learned that in the face of not having the greatest performance on stage, it’s still the idea of stepping into this alternate reality with the stage as this communal appreciation for the human struggle that we all go through in one way or another, [which is] incredibly exciting.”

Priour’s performances at Harvard have extended beyond theater space. Over the course of the past four years, he has starred in nine student films, the experience of which initially required him to step out of his comfort zone.

“I’ve always been sort of terrified of having this camera in the room, because it means you have to have the perfect performance that take,” he explains.

But rather than restrict his acting experience, Priour has embraced the new challenges posed by film work.

“I figured I might as well get used to it now when it’s in college and it’s a safe atmosphere, so I started going to these auditions. And little by little I got bigger parts in bigger projects, like thesis projects,” Priour says, “and that has been awesome because it’s a totally different world.”

While he does not yet know where his acting career will take him, Priour remains confident that acting will play an integral role in his life, referencing a Disney quote about his plans after graduation: “High diddly dee, the actor’s life for me.”

—Staff writer Bram A. Strochlic can be reached at bstrochl@fas.harvard.edu.