Needless to say, this may influence the crowd that comes to see him this week in South Florida at the Hub at Temple Beth Am. It's just one of more than 75 shows in 24 cities across the U.S. and Europe on his The Leaning in Tour.
Soresi knows the landscape here, though. He majored in musical theater at the University of Miami. "I certainly did not take advantage of going to the University of Miami," he recalls. "I was not a party kid. I was not a football kid. I was not a beach kid. I was not a Disney kid." His was a very different experience than that of his younger sister. Within a week of her time as a Hurricane, she sent him a video of Snoop Dogg passing her a joint. Soresi laughs that he hadn't met Snoop Dogg once during his four years in Miami.
Soresi was a pretty shy kid until he started doing theater. "I just need that excuse to be theatrical," he says. His dad was an angry guy, and acting offered him a safe way to express his own rage. Soresi was dead set on becoming the next Daniel Day-Lewis.
He saw Philip Seymour Hoffman in Death of a Salesman on Broadway. The first line, "I have such dark thoughts," brought Hoffman to tears. Soresi realized if his acting dream came true, it meant feeling that way day in and day out. However, his autobiographical play Less Than 50% gained traction. He remembers people most liked when he talked directly to the audience and didn't mention the intense acting. He performed eight shows a week off-Broadway and found himself bored doing the same thing every night.
He soon turned from tragedy to comedy. He uncovered his comedic strengths and honed his writing the hard way. "I just learned the rough and tumble, authentic way of bombing and bombing and how do you get these people's attention and eventually learning to hold my own ten minutes at a time," he says. "It took me a long time to realize that doing comedy didn't mean that I was failing at doing drama."@gianmarcosoresi Sign language is a little on the nose 🤟👨🏻🤣 #signlanguage #jewish #comedy #funny #jokes #standupcomdy #comedian #fyp ♬ original sound - Gianmarco Soresi
When the pandemic hit, the comedian was just about to head out on the road. Instead, he leaned into TikTok early on at home, and his comedy flourished online.
"Artists really bristle at the word content, which is understandable. But I think of it more as a desire to create, and I have thoughts that can be comedically expressed, and the podcast, stand-up, these are all mechanisms for me to express myself. And this was a path to capture those expressions," he says. He likens the algorithm to the responses of audiences at comedy clubs. "All art is limited or challenged by the means with which you're allowed to express it. Social media is just a new version of that."
Since then, Soresi has appeared on The Late Late Show with James Corden, Comedy Central, Don't Tell Comedy, and The Real Housewives of New York and was named a JFL New Face in 2022. In acting roles, he's appeared in Billy Crystal's Here Today, Netflix's Bonding, Hustlers, and The Last OG.
He recently recorded a set for Netflix's Verified Stand-Up for a New York audience. He has a recurring show in the Big Apple — soon to venture to Los Angeles, too — The Silver Lining, and a podcast, The Downside With Gianmarco Soresi, with co-host Russell Daniels and special guests.
He admits to another calling, as well — that of deprogrammer. "Honestly, I want to create a program where parents who don't want their kids to go to college for musical theater hire me, and I just take them through what the next ten years of their life is going to look like on all possible levels. And I'll say, 'Here's the best-case scenario, and that will not happen.' It'll be like Scared Straight: the Musical." Soresi thinks Miami is the perfect setting for his vision. "Here's the beautiful beaches, and here's what you'll be doing instead: practicing scales," he jokes.
Soresi has another nugget of wisdom, but this time for audiences. He suggests seeing comedians before they're famous and no longer working on new bits. "The time to see comedians is when they're touring every weekend, five shows a weekend. That's when we're in our prime. Going to see Jerry Seinfeld now is like going to see Michael Jordan play a pickup game of basketball now," he says.
So expect Soresi's time on stage to be that of a man in his finest hour.
Gianmarco Soresi. 8 p.m. Thursday, January 18, at the Hub at Temple Beth Am, 5950 N. Kendall Dr., Pinecrest; 305-667-6667; tbam.org/the-hub. Tickets cost $18 to $28 via ovationtix.com.
