Jonny Orsini Back on Broadway in A Fish in the Dark

 

Jonny Orsini Born 1986, Jonny made his professional debut in the summers of his Suffolk University Years. Before university he had never seen a professional play or even performed in a grade school or high school production, except for the one-act that he says he and some friends put together as a lark at the end of their senior year. He originally planned to study journalism, but changed his focus to theater, he preferred to use a different style in storytelling.

 

Jonny and Nathan Lane in The Nance (2013)

 

Life

Orsini grew up in the small town of Cheshire, Connecticut where his dad served as mayor for eight years and his mother was an accountant. (Today, they both work in sales and his only sibling, Julie, a new mom, has given Orsini a welcome new role as uncle). He admits that he was a bit overwhelmed by finding so many new faces when he got to Suffolk. One of the first people he happened to meet was a theater major who introduced him to other students in the department. Orsini, then known by his full name Jonathan, reveled in the camaraderie he found there. It was just the most welcoming place, he remembers.

 

 

In 2013 Jonny, one of the thousands of young actors who dream of but very few achieve. For talent is only a part of what it takes to make it in show business. An actor also needs the luck of being in the right place at the right time, the pluck to know how to make the best of it when he finds himself there, and that ineffable quality known as stage presence. Orsini has the full package. People who succeed not only understand the show, but understand the business, says Marilyn Plotkins, theatre department chair at Suffolk. Jonny understands both seamlessly.

 

Broadway Debut in “The Nance” with Nathan Lane

The Nance is a play written by Douglas Carter Beane. The play involves the lives of performers in burlesque during the 1930s. The nance was a stereotypical camp homosexual. The play is a production of the Lincoln Center and premiered on Broadway in 2013; it received five Tony Award nominations, and won three awards.

Chauncey (Lane) is gay and looks for men at an automat, but he must be careful or he could be arrested. There he meets Ned (Jonny Orsini), newly arrived in the City, and they become romantically involved.

The mayor of New York, Fiorello La Guardia, is trying to end burlesque, in part by persecuting the gay population. Chauncey, in court, defends burlesque and free expression. He comes to understand that he cannot be monogamous. Finally, he appears on stage in complete drag, playing an old prostitute.

 

 

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Jonny On Broadway

Fish in the Dark (Play) Cort Theatre 02 Feb, 2015 – 19 Jul 2015

Macbeth (Play) Vivian Beaumont Theatre 21 Nov, 2013 – 12 Jan 2014

The Nance (Play) Lyceum Theatre 21 Mar, 2013 -11 Aug, 2013

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Off Broadway

Almost Home (Play) Acorn Theatre 18 Sept, 2014 – 12 Oct, 2014

An Early History of Fire (Play) Acorn Theatre 30 Apr, 2012 – 26 May, 2012

Banished Children of Eve (Play) Irish Repertory Theatre 24 Oct, 2010 – 05 Dec, 2010

 

Jonny and David Larry in Fish in The Dark

Jonny in The Nance

See Jonny at Suffolk University Magazine by Janice C Simpson