‘Drama King’ Gianmarco Soresi brings storytelling and laughs to the Spokane Comedy Club

Comedian Gianmarco Soresi is well aware that 4 p.m. is an odd time for a comedy show, but in his opinion, those shows are, usually, surprisingly great.

“Some comedians, they think ‘Oh an early show. I should tame my act,’ and I have truly found that anyone who goes to early comedy shows, they’re the ones that need to laugh the most,” he said. “They’re like, ‘I can’t wait for the dark to hit. I need to go to a dark comedy club right now.’ ”

Spokane comedy early birds will get to enjoy a daytime show when Soresi stops by the Spokane Comedy Club for two sets on Sunday. The 7 p.m. show is sold out.

Soresi’s comedic interests were initially hidden beneath musical theater dreams. He played Harold Hill in “The Music Man” as an eighth-grader and Seymour Krelborn in “Little Shop of Horrors” as a freshman.

“That’s all I focused all my attention on,” he said. “I treated those auditions with more respect than any finals. And I got fortunate. It’s always easier for a guy in theater.”

Things changed when Soresi studied musical theater at the University of Miami. He wasn’t getting starring roles and came to terms with “no longer being a big fish in a little pond.”

He has mixed feelings about attending college for the arts, especially theater. College is typically behind on the industry it represents, he said. Plus, with youth being so valued in the industry, hiding away in an acting program then approaching the marketplace as an older performer can set you up for failure.

He likes the idea of two-year programs instead and wonders if spending less time in school would have made him realize he liked stand-up comedy earlier than he did.

Comedy took the place of musical theater after Soresi moved to New York. He got a bit of commercial work before participating in the New York Fringe Festival, the stateside equivalent of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

There he performed a one-man play about himself that he said was very meta and “Annie Hall”-esque if it had been written by Charlie Kaufmann (“Being John Malkovich,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “I’m Thinking of Ending Things”).

“I had scenes where I talked to the audience, and that’s where a lot of the good feedback was like, ‘Well, I liked when you just talked to us,’ ” he said. “That’s what led me to going ‘OK, stand up comedy. That’s the thing I’m good at.’ “

Soresi’s initial foray into the world of comedy was an interesting experience. With theater, you have the goodwill of the audience and will rarely, if ever, get heckled. His early comedy experiences came via roast battles at an event called Comedy Fight Club, during which he quickly realized his storytelling and theatrics wouldn’t help much.

Audiences preferred straight joke writing with a punchline that really popped. Soresi said audiences at these shows were hostile towards the comedians and would have been happy to see them fail.

Those early shows taught Soresi the craft of comedy, but over time he was able to bring his own theatrical nature to his joke writing. Soresi sees more theatricality on stage from comedians as more former theater kids try stand up.

“I’m part of that, and now that’s much more of a thing, but when I was starting, it was a lot of, it’s not a one-to-one, but mumblecore movies,” he said.

Soresi’s energy includes a signature lean as well as other physical elements like facing a wall before turning to look at the audience over his shoulder, mussing up his hair and touching his face.

Soresi said many of these physicalities have developed as he’s gotten more comfortable on stage, likening it to a dog excited for a treat that they know is about to come.

“I’ve learned how to give in to that or give over to that and use it for comedic effect,” he said. “If I were to do theater, it would be weird, because some characters, you’ll be like, ‘Well, that’s not how that longshoreman would react to his daughter being born in ‘Carousel’ or whatever.’

“What I like about stand-up is that it really makes me allow my impulses to take over and guide as opposed to theater, where I’d feel like I need to hide them or change them because it’s not the character.”

Soresi, who recently filmed his first special, talks a lot about his personal life while on stage, including being a child of divorce. He also seemingly has a bit about all things news and pop culture.

Soresi said it’s a challenge sometimes between writing a topical joke that will only last for a day or taking the time to write a joke that’s a little deeper and will have a bigger impact. He’s also aware of when he has too strong an opinion on something and realizes that a joke about it would come off as preaching.

“I don’t want to preach so sometimes with certain topics it’s like, ‘Oh, I’m not ready to joke about that because I want my joke to be subversive and surprising,” he said.

Another part of his show, as can be expected, involves crowd work. There’s always the risk, Soresi said, that audience members don’t want to play along, but there’s also the risk that audience members, often other theater kids, want to help too much.

Either way, Soresi said it’s his job to bring the interaction to a close in a way that shows the audience he’s still in control.

Though it’s not part of his shows, Soresi does still indulge his love of theater on stage from time to time. He hosted a show in October called “Theater Adult,” which combines stand up and singing from Soresi, special guest Hannah Solow (“Oh, Mary!”) and an audience of theater kids.

And while the tour Soresi’s bringing to Spokane is called “Drama King,” he assures anyone concerned about the potential amount of singing on stage that they’re in for a true comedy set, not a one-man show.

“You can see what I do on stage as a form of dance,” he said. “You can say there’s a musicality to the jokes that I tell, but if you hate theater, I promise you’ll be fine.”