MANHATTAN-BORN and NEBRASKA-RAISED, BRIAN HASTERT IS A WRITER, EDUCATOR, PODCAST HOST, and ACTOR.

As a writer and creative artist, Brian is driven by the idea that we become the stories we tell ourselves. He seeks to tell stories in many mediums that are compelling enough that people stop to listen, and humane enough that they’re worth our becoming.

During the first months of the pandemic in 2020, Brian created Hold the Floor with producer Alyssa Simmons. It was a 24-hour-19-minute long community filibuster on Instagram Live to call attention to the political, social, and artistic systems in our country that silence the voices of certain groups while amplifying the voices of others. Brian hosted the entirety and was joined throughout by incredible artists, activists, and civic leaders. The event raised money for voter registration to turn voices into votes.

He is currently working to spread awareness and excitement about the power of local democracy to make make our society more just and more fair. He spoke at TEDxSeattle about the ties between who gets to vote and who gets considered a full person by our government, and he interviews local and state level officials, candidates, and organizers around the country for his podcast, Local Selection.

Brian’s essays like this one about the legal and lethal impact of white men’s emotions can be found on Medium. His pilot, Casual Sex Club, about intimacy and growing up, is available upon request.

As an actor, Brian’s career has brought him from stage to screen, around the world and back again. His work has been seen on CBS, Lifetime, HBO, Starz, NBC. He studied first at NYU and then at the Yale School of Drama where he received the Oliver Thorndike Award in Acting. On stage, Brian has performed in venues all around New York City (Manhattan Theater Club, La Mama), nationally, and internationally (The National Theatre, London; The Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh; Culturegest; Lisbon).

Brian is a founding member of The TEAM, the Brooklyn-based ensemble helmed by Tony-nominee Rachel Chavkin. With the company he has co-written and devised plays that have gone on to tour all over the United States and internationally including Canada, Ireland, England, Scotland, Portugal, Austria, Hong Kong, and Australia. These shows have made annual “Top Ten” or “Best of” lists on three continents, and in 2019 The Guardian voted Mission Drift one of the 50 best plays of the 21st century. "5 Plays by The TEAM", an anthology of the TEAM's first major shows, was published by Oberon books in 2015.

Brian has also collaborated with seminal New York-based company Tectonic Theater Project on the NY premier of Tectonic’s Uncommon Sense, a play interweaving stories and lives of people on the autism spectrum.

Brian currently lives in Los Angeles, where he takes full advantage of the city’s famed doughnut industry.