Biography
Japhet Balaban was born and raised in London, England. He moved to the US to attend Kenyon College, where he studied Drama, played rugby, and DJ'd at the local radio station. Over the summers he worked at the Ojai Playwrights Conference and trained with the Atlantic Theatre Company in New York.
He moved to New York City after graduation and started interning with LAByrinth Theatre Company. He assisted Stephen Adly Guirgis on the Broadway production of The Motherf**ker with the Hat.
He spent the summer of 2011 in Chicago working on a new play with friends, and would stay in the city for the next decade. He acted in a number of well-regarded stage productions of challenging, ensemble-driven pieces including Balm in Gilead, Posh, Women Laughing Alone with Salad, Ideation and You on the Moors Now. He also trained with Steppenwolf Theatre Company, where Amy Morton once told him to "shut the f--k up, Japhet." (She meant it as a compliment, you had to be there.)
During this time Japhet started working on-camera. He shot on "Chicago P.D," "Empire," "Chicago Med" and "The Chi," in addition to booking multiple big ticket national commercials for brands like **** *****, ****, and *******. In 2019 he booked his first leading film role in the Freeform romantic comedy The Thing about Harry, and followed that up with an episode of "Fargo" in February 2020.
The next two years were, as they were for almost everyone, really hard.
Then, in 2022, amidst a bunch of auditions to play doctors, lawyers, hot doctors, jerky lawyers, hot jerky doctors, and yes, jerky hot lawyers, Japhet booked a role in the Broadway production of Tom Stoppard's Leopoldstadt. After focusing on television & film in the run up to the pandemic, then spending two years in a pandemic, it was a joy to return to a rehearsal room to work on a vital story as part of a big, talented ensemble.
He has continued working in theatre since that run ended. He starred in John Proctor is the Villain at the Huntington in 2024, and worked at Pioneer Theatre later that year. In early 2025 he performed at the Public Theatre in a new work by Caryl Churchill, directed by James Macdonald, and he recently returned to the Huntington to perform in Eureka Day.
He lives in a quiet part of New York with his wife and their dog.
