- Born
- Alexis studied at the Atlantic Theater Company Acting School through NYU (Tisch) which teaches David Mamet and W. H. Macy's "Practical Aesthetics" script-analysis technique of acting.
Earned his BFA in Drama a year early so that he could join Blue Man Group in their Off-Broadway show ("Tubes") in New York City. He left Blue Man Group shortly after to pursue acting and writing for film and television.- IMDb Mini Biography By: S.R. Allen - Raised near the Canada-Vermont border in old farm homes, school houses and without much modern technology in the beginning, Alexis started performing with Peter Schumann in Bread and Puppet Theater in nearby Glover, Vermont, (as well as its pageant play "Bread & Puppet: Domestic Resurrection Circus") in 1984, just a few months after being rescued from his burning home in the middle of the night by his mother and older brother. He subsequently grew up a performer, musician, and painter, studying and growing up with painters such as renaissance artist Larry Golden, impressionist Giovanni Guarcello, post-modernist David Bradshaw, and with family patriarch painter/humanitarian Kurt Delbanco among others.
As a child actor, Alexis apprenticed to study dramatic film acting, sketch comedy, monologue performance, commedia del-arte, circus clowning, and screenwriting with Sundance Film Festival enigma and local Vermont filmmaker/professor Jay Craven (protege of history Howard Zinn, assistant to David Dellinger), at the International Film & TV Workshops in Rockport Maine with Sam Defazio (AMDA), as well as a sponsorship by Governor Howard Dean at the Vermont Governor's Institute for filmmaking, sculpture, and acting.
Alexis appeared in several of Craven's films (as well as John Madden's film Ethan Frome, shot in his hometown) through the 1990's, working for weeks and months as a young actor alongside Martin Sheen, Liam Neeson, Patricia Arquette, Joan Allen, Michael J. Fox, Larry Pine, Rip Torn, Tantoo Cardinal, Tate Donovan, George Dickerson, Ernie Hudson, Sean Nelson, Bill Raymond, Henry Gibson, Tom Aldredge, David Lansbury, among many others. His collaborations with Craven range from the period-film cinema of Sundance to successfully performing raucous sketch comedy and monologues to a sold out fundraiser for George Stephanopoulos and Patrick Leahy to support President Bill Clinton's. Savino honored Craven in 1999 in a speech at the Vermont State House (mis-credited then as "Alexis Sorvino").
In Japan, while at St. Johnsbury Academy, Alexis became well known as a budding young Japanese-language actor, attracting the attention of their top cinema actors and managers as mentors, notably the period-film and stage actor legend Kinya Kitaohji. He keeps company with Japanese artist friends, comedian Kobayashi Nenji, musician Miwa Yoshida (Dreams Come True), Kundo Koyama (Iron Chef, Departures - Academy Award), soccer star Nakata, designer Yohji Yamamoto, and acting icon Ken Takakura. Japanese media appearances as himself (one of Japan's key Western faces/personalities) via live satellite feed news broadcasts include on both NHK and FUJI television, as well as LIVE radio hosted by Iron Chef creator Kundo Koyama (each appearance to 30-40 million viewers, LIVE), and on the Panasonic jumbo screen for Asahi TV LIVE as a guest host star on the New York City 2-hour special episode of the hit TV show "London Hearts" with comedians "London Boots." Alexis' international cultural arts-liaison interpreting work between the people of Japan and the United States include with Canon Corporation & NASA (Hydrogen Micro Fuel Battery for Int'l Space Shuttle/Station use), N35, Tokyo Smart Driver, St. Johnsbury Academy, JEAA, Lincoln Center, SMAP, Dance Theater of Harlem, Blue Man Group, Kawabata, Designers&Agents, and Hashimoto.
At University, Alexis studied at the Atlantic Theater Company Acting School through NYU (Tisch), which teaches David Mamet and W. H. Macy's "Practical Aesthetics" script-analysis technique of acting. While at Atlantic and NYU Alexis studied and workshopped material for stage & screen with John Ritter, William H. Macy, David Mamet, Ron Rifkin, Sam Shepard, Clark Gregg, Mary Steenbergen, Campbell Scott, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Robert Woodruff, Gore Vidal, Phillip Baker Hall, Mary McCann, Jordan Lage, Kelly Maurer, Craig Bacon, Karen Kohlhaas, Stephen Wangh, Damyan Popchristov, and Susan Finch.
Real world mentors/friends include Robin Williams, Peter O'Toole, Kinya Kitaohji, Jason Ritter, and Salvador Dali's former painting assistant.
Alexis earned a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Drama from NYU's Tisch School for the Arts [concentrations in Cultural Anthropology, Medieval Art/Architecture, Playwriting] a year early with highest honors so that he accept the role of the Center Blue Man to join Blue Man Group in their Off-Broadway show ("Tubes") in New York City while the troupe toured their first ever rock show with David Bowie and Moby (Area2). He left Blue Man Group shortly after to pursue acting and writing for film and television, while in national television advertisements with Bob Giraldi, Savion Glover, Madonna & Mariah Carey's tour dancers, and the cast of "Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk."
His works of fiction include several original screenplays and stage plays, including "Spalding," a play he wrote in one hour with the late great postmodernist actor/writer/performer Spalding Gray. Notable New York theater collaborators include Kristin Linklater (with Sam Rockwell and Bill Murray), Anne Bogart, David Levine, Gordon Dahlquist, Michael Cerveris, Blue Man Group, The New Museum, James Roday, and with venues such as Theater Row, New York Theater Workshop, Dixon Place, Riverside Church, KUDEN/NU Classic, Blue Man Group, the Currican Theater, Urban Stages, and Columbia University. He is a co-founder of Anseo Arts, and New York Collective for the Arts.
Recently Alexis appeared on internationally live TV (and on the jumbo-tron screens in Times Square) alongside America Olivo, Christian Campbell, several TV stars, and the casts of Broadway's Lion King, Spider Man, and Motown to open the NASDAQ stock exchange for non-profit "Baby Quest." On his mother's side, Alexis is a Warburg/DelBanco, and a Minden (German-British & Belgian Royal Society). His family created the Federal Reserve, supersonic commercial air travel (Concorde Jet), and United Bank of Switzerland, as well as the Kindertransport (the Jewish Underground Railroad to save the lives of Jewish children) during World War 2, and the published works of JRR Tolkien. Alexis was raised with no wealth, no inheritance, and little to no knowledge of his family background, until he was 30 years of age. His family (Kurt Delbanco) support and run organizations for the refugees and victims of Nazi war crimes.
Lifelong Alexis privately pursues music, drawing, design, sewing, sculpting, painting, book making, and documentary filmmaking. A 14 minute excerpt of his feature length documentary "The Oakes" screened during the summer of 2014 at the National Museum of Mathematics' inaugural first floor gallery solo show retrospective of the films' subjects, Ryan & Trevor Oakes (curated by New Yorker art critic Lawrence Weschler); the show was previewed by legendary physicist professor Freeman Dyson (Institute for Advanced Study). Works by Alexis for stage include the full-length monologue homage/dialogism "Spalding," co-written with Spalding Gray in one hour in 2000.
Notable musical performances include with Antony Langdon (Space Hog, I'm Still Here), Mike Meza (The Filthy Souls), CBGB, Sony Records, Weezer, Taj Mahal, Bread & Puppet, Blue Man Group, several independent bands, and as a child on tour with bluegrass and cajun musicians between Northern Vermont and New Orleans, Louisiana. As a small child, Alexis absorbed stringed instruments with Taj Maha's banjo teacher / Stevie Ray Vaughan's bandmate (The Cobra's) Denny Freeman, as well as with Burt Porter, Tracey Schwartz, Dewie Balfa, Bob Dylan (and his band), and the New Lost City Ramblers.
Alexis enjoys his philanthropic mission as a serving as a fellow nonstop guardian of our natural habitats, endangered species, and the planet, often through supporting international biodynamic farming, climate change awareness, conservation education and outreach, as well as healing notable public personalities and culture-makers with ancient wisdom, yoga, ayurveda, tonic herbalism, and raw vegan organic food. He is an international yogi/healer and consultant/guide to notable families in need, including Isaac Mizrahi, Karen O, Lori Goldstein, and the heads of Elle Magazine, the Rubenstein family, Vogue Magazine, Harpers Bazaar, Saks 5th Avenue, Vera Wang, Carolina Herrera, and Goldman Sachs. He served as Creative Director of New York Restaurant Pure Food & Wine from 2007 to 2008, ghostwriting segments of their book "Living Raw Food" [HarperCollins].- IMDb Mini Biography By: S.R. Allen
- Gender / Gender identityMale
- Was the youngest person to be hired into training as a Blue Man.
- Founding member of New York Collective For The Arts.
- Lifelong painter and visual artist.
- Grew up performing in Bread & Puppet in Glover, VT, and in the independent films of Vermont filmmaker (and Sundance alum) Jay Craven.
- Awarded best actor by Maggie Flanigan (Nolita Film Fest) for his performance as Yusif in The Seventh Dog, a short film by Zeina Durra.
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