Actor lands lead much to his surprise

From ensemble member to understudy, to the character Benny in the musical RENT, Alex Giorgi has been cast as them all, before actual rehearsals even began.

A second-year student, Giorgi was originally cast as an ensemble member, then promoted to Benny’s understudy. After several actors were not able to participate in the show, he was promoted yet again, to Benny.

“It was kind of a shock,” he said. “I feel blessed because I wasn’t originally cast as this part.”

Giorgi found out about his role the same day the first rehearsal began. “I have to get to know this character so I can put him on,” he said.

The dialogue in RENT is put into song, so, he “knew that it was going to be a challenge,” he said.

Benny is the landlord in the musical who aims to open a studio and have his friends take part. However, to do so, he must collect the rent.

His character is often viewed as the antagonist of the show. But, Giorgi said, “from Benny’s perspective, he’s actually trying to help them. He’s just trying to do what he thinks is right.”

Giorgi began his acting career in third grade, and performed at Sam Barlow High School and Black Swan Youth Theater.

He participated in choir throughout high school and was able to dance and sing in musicals. He also just took an MHCC dance class during Fall Term.

He once played three supporting roles in “Voice of the Prairie,” and said it was “my favorite time to act at Barlow, because not everyone knew that I was all three. I was able to, with costumes and my voice, to disguise myself.

“As a challenge, it was really exciting to be able to do that,” he said. He called Voice of the Prairie a “really unique experience.”

Giorgi enjoys voice work as well as acting. “I love basically developing voice along with physical characterizations, because I think it adds layers and interesting elements to characters,” he said.

In summer 2011 he traveled to England with Black Swan and fell in love with the country. “It was great to be over there and I want to go back,” he said.

While in Britain, he had trouble speaking with an American accent, because he had studied voices for theater and automatically tried to duplicate the British accent.

He participated in each production last year at MHCC and in ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ during Fall Term.

“MHCC has provided a lot of acting opportunities for me. It has been able to fill my acting need,” Giorgi said. He plans to finish his degree this year and transfer to a university to pursue a theater degree.

“I love acting. Whatever I do in the future, as a career, I know I want it to somehow relate to acting,” Giorgi said. And yet, “I am a little scared of it because it is such a hard field to go into,” he said.

He aims to pursue his dreams and perhaps act on Broadway someday, he said. “If it’s your dream, you got to shoot for it, if you can.”