Alex Emanuel
Alex Emanuel is a professional theatre, film and tv actor, producer, filmmaker, writer and director, as well as a former touring/recording rock musician and visual artist. He was born in the Little Italy area of NYC to artist parents and alternated time growing up between there and Western MA. Alex earned a degree at Skidmore College in Fine Art and trained as an actor in NY and in Chicago. He's a member of SAG-AFTRA , AEA and ASCAP, and has worked regionally, on all three coasts, in the UK and in Eastern Europe.
Alex's feature film work include roles in The Incoherents, which he also produced and scored, Inside the Rain, When Everything's Gone, The Luring, Stealing Chanel, Orgami, Black Wake, Keep the Change, 39 and 1/2, Juvie, Uncaged, Blowtorch, Trooper, Buster, Together, 2 Wks 1 Yr, Brother 2 among other films. He's also appeared in a plethora of acclaimed short films over the years. His TV credits include roles on Succession, Public Morals, Bronx SIU, 50 Central, Blue Bloods, House of Cards, Rescue Me, Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Hack, Sex and the City, As the World Turns, All My Children, The Other F Word and The Whitest Kids You Know among other shows. Alex has acted in more than his share of short films as well, many of which have garnered awards at festivals, and also appeared in many music videos and commercials. You can view more of Alex's film and tv work at his website alexemanuel.com
He's worked extensively in the Theatre as well, in, among other plays, the premieres of Stew (TONY award winning Passing Strange on Broadway)'s rock musical Family Album at OSF in Oregon, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (in which he portrayed "Deckard" in the critically acclaimed stage version of the book Bladerunner was based on) in NY, Jeff Marx (Avenue Q) and Fat Mike (NOFX)'s punk rock musical Home Street Home at ZSpace in San Francisco, Disappeared at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, Fringe of Humanity (by Paul Calderon and starring David Zayas), Possible Worlds, Eagle River and other plays in Chicago, Harakiri Kane, Pucker Up and Blow (directed by Casting Director Paul Schnee) for the NY Fringe, Open the Dark Door, To Barcelona, Shekinah, Count Down, Live Coverage, Broken Shadows and productions of Secrets of Freud and Jung, The Years, Three Days of Rain, The Killing Game and The Dreamer Examines His Pillow.
As mentioned above, Alex has won awards for his acting work at a plethora of film festivals. He's been deemed "Excellent" by The Chicago Tribune, "Wonderful" by The Chicago Sun Times, "Perfect" by theasy, "Charismatic" by blogcritics, "Charming" by the Chicago Reader and "Hilarious" by nytheatre. Theatremania has pointed out Alex "brought fire" to his performance, while hilobrow called Alex's work "Staggering". Backstage has said Alex recalls "the gruff soulfulness of Harrison Ford", while theatreonline said Alex "performs with conviction, believability, gusto". These are just a few of the many stellar reviews Alex has gotten.
When not acting, Alex devotes a good portion of his time writing and looking for projects for his start-up production company Starna Productions. Starna, along with Loaded Barrel Studios and Roanan Jean Productions produced the award-winning rock 'n' roll comedy feature The Incoherents, in which Alex starred in, was a producer of, and wrote original music for. The film hit the festival circuit in 2019, during which it won 4 Best Picture awards, a Best Homegrown Feature award, one for Best of Fest overall, and was nominated for Best Feature and Best Comedy at the fests it didn't win. The Incoherents was picked up for distribution by Gravitas Ventures and released in April 2020, and is now being adapted for a TV show by Alex and his co-producer Jeff Auer. Also on the docket is a documentary Alex is working on about his father, the celebrated cartoonist/illustrator Robert Grossman, who passed away in 2018, and a noir feature film titled The Fleshwriter, written by award winning author Michael Gruber.
Alex recently completed an album of 15 songs entitled "Better Light" that he's presently shopping to labels, and his short plays "Hallucy" and "Come and Knock Down My Door" have been read at Naked Angels in NYC; productions and/or film adaptations to come. In the past, Alex also has worked as a published illustrator (clients include The New York Times), a record album producer and art director for "Occupy this Album", the 4-disc, 99 song collection benefiting the Occupy Movement, acting coach, welder, freelance reviewer and professional musician. He's written music for, toured, recorded, played bass, guitar and sung with numerous rock bands, including his own former bands Permission, Rollo, Transit Belle, Hygiene, Lucan, Rodan and Rang, plus OSFU, The Navigators, Edison Woods, The Swedes, Brilliantine, Pen Pal, Chavez, Sammy, The Subway Sun, Under Nation, The Gallenas and others. Some of Alex's original songs having been licensed for TV and films.