We recently connected with Jon-mykul Bowen and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Jon-Mykul thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

Sometimes I do wish I started a little earlier. For a little backstory, I didn’t start training and acting on a professional level until I was 16. I’ve learnt theater before but only with my school’s drama club. At the time, I was still toying with doing a science career or law career versus a performing arts one. I had a few choice meetings and realizations, and made the decision at the last possible moment in my high school journey to switch career tracks.

I actually didn’t do college straight after high school, but took a ‘gap year’, which extended into five gap years, having a corporate job and continuing my acting on the side. Then the pandemic happened and so I had to wait even more.

I’m torn when I think about it. I do wish sometimes I had the things I have now fall in place a little earlier. I wished I picked up on the skills a bit faster. Whatever talent I have, it pales in comparison to the hours of blood, sweat and tears I had to put in to develop my skills. I was inherently scientific, and not artistic, so I felt like I had to work three times as hard to “make up” for starting so late.

But that’s the thing, I didn’t have to rush. I’m content that they fell into place now. If I had started earlier, would it have made a difference? And would I have been able to? Barbados, unlike New York, didn’t have a widespread of acting training opportunities. The years it took helped to let things marinate and develop more. So even though I do wish it happened to my original timing a little bit, it ended up the best it could honestly.

Jon-Mykul, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Yes, I’m Jon-Mykul Bowen, born and raised in Barbados. The best way to label me right now is a multidisciplinary actor and stage manager, but I wear so many hats that the label starts to fall apart really.

I’ve acted on stage in Barbados for years, with Operation Triple Threat in musical theater, before moving to New York to pursue acting full time. While there, I learnt about Stage Management working as a Production Assistant.

I’ve since graduated and now I am a professional actor, performing in original works in New York.

I also work as a stage manager, having both been an assistant stage manager and a production stage manager on various projects. I think that’s what helps me grow. I don’t say no, I really do pursue other areas of performing – like directing or playwrighting, outside of being an actor. It all loops and folds into each other, and I usually see things on a big picture scale. If I can learn and operate sound and lights, great! Costumes/props/design? Why not! I guess where I want to aim to be is a professional “theater person”.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

That even though we work and train a lot, that most of what we do is unpaid for non-union work.

It’s paradoxical. We hustle and bustle for these opportunities, even make our own, and we accumulate all of these credits, and yet a good set of them are unpaid or stipend. Or deferred box office profits. And the opportunities that are more well paying can seem more like a lottery to get.

But you may be wondering why we do it in the first place? Why do all of this on top of trying to find a job and stable source of income?

There’s a triangle that people sometimes use to see if they’ll take a job: 1) Does it pay? 2) Is it creatively fulfilling? 3) Does it put me in the places or the rooms that I want to be in?

The more questions that the job says yes to, the more likely we might take it. Most gigs only fill two of those questions. Up to you which two are your priority.

For me it’s love and passion, and faith – belief that what is right for you will not pass you by. Or you make a play or film for yourself that fills you. I wish it wasn’t this case, but in this economy, without grants or sponsors, most indie or small scale stuff barely has enough to get the show off the ground. Every show you see – live or filmed – is a miracle in planning, execution, and funding.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I like seeing what the work can do to a person who hasn’t been exposed to that part of life before. A lot of the time my pleasure in working in the theater (whether acting or stage managing) comes from what other people experience from the work.

And I mean the “well done” or the occasional “you were exceptional in that role” does flatter me, but ultimately if someone says “That made me think about life in a completely different way.”, then that’s where I silently rejoice and get excited. Each performance is its own living thing, never before seen, and it is a chance to open a dialogue, or to release pent up thoughts and emotions through these characters we see.

Art is both for entertainment and a chance for education and exposure to those who usually don’t have a voice. And if I get to be a part of a piece of work that can do all three, then I feel like all of my years of working was worth it. That is the biggest reward.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://jm-bowen.com
• Instagram: @jean_mykulbowen

Image Credits

Headshot – Darnell Bennett Photography

Bronwen Sharp

Luana Seu