Gregory Cioffi
Greg (AEA, SAG-AFTRA) is a professional actor, director, and published writer. Born and raised in New York, he received his Bachelors of Arts and Masters of Science in English Education with a concentration in English Writing and was further awarded the Writing Across the Curriculum Award in recognition of writing intensive studies. He then earned his Master of Arts in Theatre Acting from Long Island University where he came to the revelation that being an artist was something he simply needed to do for the rest of his life to be truly happy.
The Actor
As a professional actor, Greg recently portrayed Fat Ricky in the television show The Godfather of Harlem. He was also featured in Martin Scorsese's film, The Irishman and played notorious gangster Tommy Lucchese in AMC's mini-series The Making of the Mob. Greg continuously plays Tony in various national and international tours of Tony n Tina's Wedding as well. He was most recently seen on stage in Trefftpunkt as a part of the 2017 Strawberry One-Act Festival where he won a Best Actor award. He has been seen on stage as Antonio Garcia in Adrift: Hoes on the High Seas and before that he portrayed Laertes in Hamlet, for which he was nominated for Best Actor for the 2013 BroadwayWorld Long Island Awards. Other recent New York theatre acting credits include Romeo and Juliet, Restoration, Satire Off-Broadway, Dog Sees God, Sure Thing, Cul-de-Sac, The Interim, and Billy Witch. He has starred in award-nominated short films such as Silenced and The Interview and films he has acted in have been screened at numerous festivals around the country. He has appeared on numerous cable television shows/mini series' including: Inside the American Mob, Blood Feuds, Monsters Inside Me, Greatest Mysteries: Vatican, and the Ice-T produced pilot Taking East New York. Look for him in the upcoming film Transit: A NYC Fairytale. He is a proud graduate of LIU Post's graduate theatre program where he was trained in the Suzuki Method along with Viewpoints while also studying more traditional trainings such as Stanislavsky, Meisner, Voice and Speech, Greek/Shakespeare work, and Stage Combat.
The Writer: (Click here to check out Greg’s Publication Portfolio!)
As a writer, his short stories The Catacombs of Truth, Sleeper, Plot, A Peep at London Life, The Irregularity, A Literary Siesta, and Cuisine Aquatic have all been published by Feral Press and subsequently archived in many libraries including Yale Univeristy’s Beinecke Collection of rare books and manuscripts. His horror stories Faceless, The Solemn Vow, The Extras, The Dead Witch of Woodbrock Bog, and Dark Circles have been published by Blood Moon Rising Magazine. His Science Fiction short stories The Bequest, Lineage and Legacy, See You on the Other Side, Sacrificial Lambs Positronic Programs; OR The Joys of Parenthood, and A Message From the Last Generation of Man have all been featured in Aphelion, an online literary magazine focusing on science fiction and fantasy. His first crime fiction story, The Wrath of a Writer Wronged, was published by Mystery Weekly Magazine and his allegoric essay The Bubble was published in Allegory Ridge Magazine. Furthermore, The Pleasure Palace was published in Queen Mob’s Tea House, The Architect and Misses Sisyphus in Fleas on the Dog, and Roman[tic] Charity in Little Old Lady (LOL) Comedy. Two of his poems (Love Verboten, and The Interlocking) were published as a part of a poetry anthology entitled Paumanok Interwoven while Murder at the Monastery was published in The Five-Two.
His original play The Letter was chosen and produced as part of the 2010 Long Island Fringe Festival and his next play, The Interim was selected to the 2011 New York City International Fringe Festival, the largest theatre festival in North America.
Other original plays that have been produced include Unloaded, Cul-de- Sac, Ménage a Twat (which won Most Popular Production at the Midtown International Theatre Festival), Death by Peanut Butter (Producers Club, NYC) and Qualia: Origins of the Undead, which ran for three seasons on Long Island.
His screenwriting credits include The Interview (Nominated Best Comedy Short: Central Florida Film Festival), Evening Class, Silenced, Sex in Literature, Wet Paint To Wonder If…, The Museum of Lost Things (Winner of multiple Awards), Retrograde, The Concertgoer, and Transit: A New York City Fairytale. These films have had numerous official selections at various film festivals such as: The Friar’s Club Film Festival, The Long Island International Film Expo, The Rhode Island International Film Festival, The Big Apple at Tribeca Film Festival, The New York Short Film Festival, Global Shorts, The Madrid International Film Festival, The Poe Film Festival, The Russian International Horror Awards, The Dumbo Film Festival, Scared For Your LIIFE, and the NYC Downtown Short Film Festival.
The Director:
Greg is especially proud of Capture, a play he directed for the 2016 Venus/Adonis Festival, which received very positive reviews and theatrically pushed the boundaries of storytelling. The play and its original crew performed the piece once again at Seven Angels Theatre in Waterbury, CT in 2017.
Greg directed Cold Porridge, a satire on all things murder mystery, as a part of the 2018 NY Winterfest Theatre Festival. It was highly successful and received shocking gasps of hilarious horror...in all the right places.
He has also directed theatrical pieces such as The Letter (2010 L.I. Fringe), Copse (assistant director, Midwinter Madness), Death by Peanut Butter (Love Creek Productions), Ménage a Twat (Won Most Popular Production – Midtown International Short Play Festival), Ruptured and The Locals (Manhattan Rep).
Greg made his cinematic directorial debut with the short film The Museum of Lost Things. The film won Best Story at the Long Island International Theatre Expo, Honorable Mention at Global Shorts, and Best Supporting Actor at the Madrid International Film Festival.
During the quarantine of 2020, Greg directed the ZOOM play Even If It Gets Us Nowhere and a short film entitled Into the Water starring multiple broadway actors.
Look out for Greg’s newest film, The Concertgoer, set to premiere later this year!
He was most recently hired to direct one of the First Year Showcases at Long Island University in the Spring of 2022.
The Educator:
Greg holds two collegial degrees in education and is a member of Heterodox Academy.
He has most recently joined the English department at LIU as an adjunct professor. He also teaches Literature and Composition online at Post University as well as three courses at Nassau Community College (an acting class, a poetry class, and a creative writing course).
He furthermore teaches both acting and writing privately, usually in-between semesters.
From 2017 to 2020 Greg was the permanent substitute instructor for Susan Campanaro's Improv class at Susan Batson Studios.
Greg has a keen interest in combining his education background with his theatre experiences; the first foray into this world occurred at the 10th semi-annual Conference of Elementary-Secondary Teaching & Learning (CESTL) where Greg gave a lecture entitled "Acting'" Like a Teacher. This topic is continually explored as Greg frequently visits Pace University to teach a workshop to education students with Doctor Joan Walker.
While a graduate student, Greg also had the honor of being the teaching assistant to Dave Hugo, the professor of the freshman acting class at LIU Post, during his graduate studies.
In 2018 Greg was granted the Hemera Contemplative Fellowship for Artists and went off to the Zen Mountain Monastery to study Zen Art, allowing him to expand his knowledge and perspective regarding his craft.
Greg has proudly served on the SAG Awards Nominating Committee.