Hometown: Potomac, MD. But I tell people DC to sound cool.
Education: University of Miami, Ward Studio, Alan Langdon (three different phases of my acting training, at least)
Favorite Credits: Danny in Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Officer Lockstock in Urinetown, and, one day, I hope, Salieri in Amadeus and Max in Becky Shaw
Why theater?: A longing to connect with other human beings, I sucked at sports, and a very big ego.
Tell us about <50%: <50%, a stand-up comedy filled “Annie Hall” meets Charlie Kaufman with a dash of “Inception”, is a show about me and my ex putting on a show about ourselves putting on a show about ourselves. This will hopefully make more sense when I answer the next question.
What inspired you to write <50%: I originally wrote <50% to reunite my ex-girlfriend and I. After five years together, we amicably split with the caveat that we would be in the show at the next Fringe Festival. The plot was based on our plan to reunite with a play about ourselves…Unfortunately that show did not get in. On top of that, my friendship with my ex got, as they often do, complicated. Undeterred by rejection on all fronts I continued to work on the play, this time acknowledging that the play was literally about the two people performing it, allowing her and I to break out of the play at times to try to figure out what the f*ck we were doing in the first place. From there, time got warped, plays within plays within plays merged with real life, and hopefully what has emerged is a hilariously tragic emotional trainwreck. You can see me attempt an explanation of the show here as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmBShDSvaH0 - though I’m not promising it’ll make it any clearer.
What kind of theater speaks to you? What or who inspires you as an artist?: I. LOVE. TELEVISION. I love sitting at home with a glass of the most inexpensive wine I could find at the grocery store and watching Netflix. So theater that speaks to me is anything I couldn’t have gotten on my iPad. It really doesn’t get more specific than that. I recently saw “Queen of the Night”, which, based on its description, I would never have considered my jam. But when I was there, sharing food with complete strangers, getting touched in places I’m not normally touched in public, etc….IT WAS AWESOME! That certainly doesn’t mean interactive/immersive/w/e is all that it takes..my top three experiences at the theater are Philip Seymour Hoffman in Death of a Salesman, Liev Schreiber in A View From the Bridge and the OBC in August: Osage County. At the end of the day, if you make me feel connected to other people I’m gonna dig it.
If you could work with anyone you’ve yet to work with, who would it be?: I would like to work on a Stephen Adly Guirgis play with Sean Penn and Julianne Moore as my parents and Rooney Mara as my love interest, directed by David Cromer. It has to all happen at the same time or I’m simply not interested.
What show have you recommended to your friends?: Unfortunately the run has ended but Animus Theatre Company’s Dutch Heart of Man at the Cherry Lane Theatre was some of the best acting I’ve seen all year. For the two or tree non-theater people I know I always recommend Sleep No More to establish trust and gradually get riskier with my recommendations.OH! You know what was really spectacular? And full disclosure one of my Fringe producers is working on the next incarnation, Strangeman & Co.’s The Woodsman at 59E59 was a pretty extraordinary experience. The puppetry, the movement, the music…that one is coming back to 59E59 at some point-don’t miss it!
Who would play you in a movie about yourself and what would it be called?: My doppelgänger, Jeff Goldblum, would star as Gianmarco Soresi in: “Stop Telling Me I Look Like Jeff Goldblum”
What’s your biggest guilty pleasure?: Blockheads. I love cheap frozen margaritas. When the Fringe Festival is done I plan to have many.
What’s the most played song on your iTunes?: "Quando m’en vo" from La Boheme (1990, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra). That being said, the second is "Legally Blonde Remix" from Legally Blonde The Musical.
If you weren’t working in theater, you would be _____?: In advertising. However, my knowledge as to what that means is entirely informed by Mad Men.
What’s up next?: I’ll continue acting in Pipeline Theatre Company’s immersive Clown Bar, Off-Broadway at The Box every Saturday night. Depending on the night I play Zeezoo, a newly immigrated French Lecoq school drop-out diligently manning the bathrooms, Happy, an ex-clown cop hell bent on avenging his unfunny dead brother, and Bo Bo, a slimy mobster clown with a taste for bananas. We were recently extended! http://pipelinetheatre.org/main-stage/clown-bar/
My web series, "An Actor Unprepared", which just completed its first season with 1909 Productions, is actively being submitted to festivals. www.AnActorUnprepared.com And I’ll also begin work on Para-, a play about a phony psychic’s rise to riches in the infamous Camp Chesterfield, Indiana, a stand-up comedy hour called Sex, Drugs and Anxiety, and my first children’s book, Sisyphus and Sam, is nearly done being illustrated by the incredible Brian Cheng. If any of these things actually get done you can find out at www.GianmarcoSoresi.com