Daniel Getzoff
Actor, Playwright
Danny grew up in New Jersey, only 15 miles outside of but worlds away from New York City where he was introduced to theatre as a young'un and studied acting at HB Studios with Sandy Dennis while still in high school. He attended Cornell University for a short while and graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz with highest honors with an individual major in cultural theory as well as from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center's National Theatre Institute. Before moving to LA, Danny lived for a short time in New York where he studied with Uta Hagen and acted in several new plays in venues such as Playwrights Horizons, Theatre for the New City, and La Mama.
While in Los Angeles, Danny has performed onstage for a variety of companies. Melancholy Play is his second production at Son of Semele. He has been a member of SOSE since 2006 when he appeared in King Cat Calico Finally Flies Free! In addition, he has been part of the devising workshops and early readings for two of SOSE's current projects, Omnivore and Flood. Other selected credits include: The Compound Dog and At Least Until You Die (also wrote and produced), both at the Eclectic Company Theatre, Itself (Lunacy Theatre) Ah, Wilderness! at A Noise Within (Drama-Logue Award & Robby Award nomination), Waiting for Godot and In the Wake Of… (plymouth), Kill Switch (Ventura Court Theatre) and S.A.M. I Am (East West Players).
Onscreen he most recently appeared in Don Mancini's cult horror film Seed of Chucky which he filmed in Dracula’s home country of Romania. He also appeared briefly in Lethal Weapon 4 and Mixed Nuts, and performed leading roles in festival award-winning indie favorites Love, Lust & Joy, Girl X (Hollywood Film Festival) and Jimmy Rocket Knocks Your Socks Off.
Also a playwright, his first full-length play, At Least Until You Die, earned him a Garland Award nomination for Playwriting in 2006. His one-act play Propinquity (co-written with Elizabeth Dement) was produced for the Eclectic Company Theatre's Hurricane Season festival. Another one-act, I Am Not A Mirror, was performed at the 24th Street Theatre for the Virginia Avenue Project. He also has performed his own writing at several LA venues including plymouth and SPARK at the Powerhouse Theatre. His next foray into playwriting is a project about the life and poetry of Frank O'Hara. With his writing partner, Tom Gottleib, he wrote the short film Guy & Rex and, like most people in LA, is engaged in the long-term process of writing a feature film, the subject of which might someday thrill and kill cinema-going audiences.
In addition to acting and writing, Danny is a marathon runner and triathlete and has been a longtime advocate for public health issues having run a syringe exchange program and a drop-in center for homeless young people on the Westside at Common Ground in Santa Monica. He currently serves as Common Ground's Deputy Director.
