Stand-up comedian Geno Bisconte, actress and Traders creator Olivia Gropp, and Squeezebox Records owner Rich Fisher share laughs during an interview last month at the record shop.. Photo Out & About
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Olivia’s First Cut Delaware actress Olivia Gropp makes her directing debut with a thrilling short that merges music and murder By Jim Miller
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ctress Olivia Gropp, stand-up comedian Geno Bisconte and Squeezebox Records owner Rich Fisher are at the scene of the crime — all sitting on the same couch where Bisconte was murdered last summer. In fact, they are laughing about it.
Anyone who has seen or heard Bisconte’s brazen and provocative brand of humor might not be surprised someone might have had it in for him. But in real life, the comedian is still alive and kicking. Often like a mule on amphetamines. The murder that the three are giggling about is the plot to Gropp’s writing-and-directing debut, the film short Traders, which was filmed last July at Squeezebox. Today, nearly seven months later, Gropp, Bisconte and Fisher have reunited to talk about how the film came to be — and how the comedian’s character came to not be. The super-taut thriller sees Gropp’s street-smart character confidently striding into a record store near closing time to engage in a trade with a mysterious man (Brian Dole), who she assumes is the shop’s “new guy.” Unbeknownst to her, the man was cleaning blood off the floor just a minute earlier. For the majority of the film’s nine minutes, Bisconte’s recordstore owner spends his screen time as a neck-cut corpse. “Now I can say I’ve died on stage and screen,” boasts Bisconte to more laughs. Bisconte’s comedy career started in Wilmington nearly two
decades ago before his big move to New York City and, more recently, doing stand-up tours across the country. Now, he can add “actor in an award-winning film short” to his resumé. In December, Traders won Outstanding Achievement Award (Thriller) at the IndieX Film Fest in Los Angeles. Last month a Film Threat review last called it “a winning slice of period pastiche that doesn’t overstay its welcome.” Sure, these are fancy feathers in the cap for the funny guy, but much more so for the film’s creator, Gropp, who is just 20 and still in college studying biology at the University of Delaware. ► MARCH 2022 | OUTANDABOUTNOW.COM
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