At the age of 21 McClain moved to Chicago where he wrote and began performing his critically acclaimed, multiple character, one-man show, "Like It Is."

The Chicago Reader was quoted as saying: “If we’re ever to return to a day when theatre matters, we’ll need a few hundred more artists with McClain’s vision and courage.”[1] The show subsequently moved to New York, where his work was compared to that of Eric Bogosian, John Leguizamo, and Anna Deavere Smith.

In 2010 he was cast as the lead in TV Land's second original comedy series Retired at 35 which premiered on January 19, 2011, at 10:30 pm following Hot in Cleveland.

[3] In 2012, New York Times bestselling author Lincoln Child's audiobook recording of The Third Gate was released for which Johnathan McClain was the narrator.

[6] AudioFile magazine reviewed it positively saying, "McClain enhances the narrative passages about the history of Egyptian royalty with deft pacing.