Jon DiSavino has been a professional performer since the age of 17, when he was recruited from the lighting booth to replace an actor in a dinner theatre production of Cabaret starring Judy Carne.  While attending Carnegie-Mellon University, he was cast as Mercutio in a short film adaptation of  Romeo and Juliet starring Julia Duffy. Produced by KQED in association with National Geographic, it is part of the educational series, The World of William Shakespeare. Upon graduating in 1977, he moved to New York, where his first role was the narrator in the world premiere of Seymour Barab's The Toy Shop for New York City Opera's Young Audiences program (he also doubled as Paulette, the mechanical gorilla). The Toy Shop was performed at Lincoln Center and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. prior to touring schools in the tri-state area. (New York Times review at http://www.seymourbarab.com/ under "for Young Audiences") When John-Michael Tebelak, the creator of Godspell, was starting a new theatre to be housed at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan, he selected Jon for the resident company, which included Ruth Warrick and Michael Mayer. He was cast in the lead role in the premiere of A Ballad of a Sweet Dream of Peace by Pulitzer-winning author Robert Penn Warren, which was attended by Mr. Warren. With plans under way to construct a theatre in the crypt below the Cathedral's altar, the company's future was suddenly cut short with the untimely death of John-Michael two years later.  When the Philadelphia-based Landis and Company (now the Enchantment Theatre Company http://www.enchantmenttheatre.org/ ) brought The Great Vaudeville Magic Show to the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Jon was cast as Max, the theatre-chain owner. He was cast in multiple roles when the company toured Asia in 1989, playing in venues in Taipei and the provinces of Taiwan before moving on to the International Arts Festival in Hong Kong.

Jon worked for two years as a professional puppeteer, touring New Jersey schools with a one-man show, Rip Van Twinkle. Created by Elek Hartman, it was commissioned by the NJ energy company, PSE&G. In 1987, Jon and his wife Maureen moved to San Francisco. Over the next thirteen years, his work was seen in Bay Area venues such as The Magic Theatre and 42nd Street Moon (a company devoted to staging "lost" American musicals http://www.42ndstmoon.com/), and he was a founding member of the Oakland-based company, TheatreFIRST (http://www.theatrefirst.com/ ). Jon and family returned to New York in 2001, settling in Rockland county. Recent roles include Jerry in Edward Albee's The Zoo Story at Nyack Center, and the Messenger in a concert performance of The Dybbuk, a new chamber opera, at Riverspace in Nyack, NY. Jon's directing credits include the premiere of an early work by Ricky Ian Gordon - the children's musical The Dancing Panda, starring Alison Fraser (book and lyrics by Laurie Manifold), at the Nameless Theatre in NYC; and the Arthur Schwartz/Dorothy Fields musical A Tree Grows In Brooklyn for 42nd Street Moon in San Francisco.   Jon has taught speech and voice at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, and has been a personal voice and speech coach for actors and corporate clients on both coasts. He has served as dialect coach for many productions, working with actors in companies such as Theatreworks and TheatreFIRST in the San Francisco Bay area.   Jon is a member of Actors Equity Association.