Jesse J. Perez

Jesse J. Perez was born in Los Angeles in 1977. He graduated from the Juilliard School in New York and works as an actor and choreographer, mainly in the USA. In New York he has appeared in Penal Colony by Steven Berkoff at the Classic Stage Company (director: Joanne Akalaitis, 2001), in Craig Wright’s Recent Tragic Events at Playwrights Horizons (director: Michael John Garcés, 2002), in The Triple Happiness by Brooke Berman at the Second Stage Theatre (director: Michael John Garcés, 2004), in The Adventures of Barrio Grrrl! by Quiara Hudes at the Summer Play Festival (director: Liesl Tommy, 2005) and in Lucia di Lammermoor by Gaetano Donizetti at the Metropolitan Opera (director: Mary Zimmerman, 2011). Furthermore, since 2003 he has appeared regularly on stage at the Yale Repertory Theatre: he played Trofimov in Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard (director: Bill Rauch), Gremio in Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, Artist Rodrigo in Wedekind’s Lulu (both directed by Mark Lamos) and Florindo in Chris Bayes’ production of Goldoni’s Servant of Two Masters. He most recently appeared in Fassbinder’s In einem Jahr mit dreizehn Monden (director: Robert Woodruff). Further engagements have taken him to the Goodman Theatre, the Shakespeare Theatre Company, the American Repertory Theatre, the Guthrie Theater, the McCarter Theatre Center and to the Humana Theatre Festival of New Plays.
In addition to his numerous stage performances, he has also appeared in the TV series Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU, Person of Interest, The Job and Third Watch, as well as in the movies Kazaam, Playing God, Enter Nowhere and American Splendor. As a choreographer, Jesse J. Perez was responsible for numerous productions by Brian Mertes; these include the trilogy The Greeks (Juilliard School) and Robert Harling’s Steel Magnolias (Trinity Repertory Company). He also spent over seven years working on Mertes’ Chekhov productions for his legendary open-air theatre spectacular near Lake Lucille in upstate New York – where he finally worked with Brian Mertes and Julian Crouch for the first time in 2011 (The Seagull).

Current as of summer 2013