2014-2015
“Perhaps there is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience we were driven out of Paradise, because of impatience we cannot return.”
— W.H. Auden
Even after ten months on the road with a first national Broadway tour, I had a tough time finding representation.
(In fact, I lost my commercial representation, who were unhappy I’d left town for so long.)
Then, out of the blue, a major New York casting director contacted me. He'd seen me play a communist in HOME/SICK and a suicidal depressive in That Poor Dream, and in December 2014, six months after Starcatcher, three-and-a-half years after he’d first seen me perform, and a decade after we’d met, he called me in for the first time, to audition for a suicidal communist in Dying For It at Atlantic Theater Company.
My first big-budget, high-profile Off Broadway show, Dying For It featured some of my favorite actors on the planet, including Joey Slotnick, who’d played a pitch-perfect Groucho Marx at Williamstown Theatre Festival; Mary Beth Peil, the last Anna to play opposite Yul Brynner in The King and I; Robert Stanton, who had originated David Ives’ iconic All in the Timing; and Jeanine Serralles, whom I’d seen in one stunning performance after another — from New York Theatre Workshop to The Public to Clubbed Thumb — over the past decade.
All nine of them, except me, had been offers; except for the show’s two musicians, mine was the only role they auditioned.
For the first time, managers and agents expressed interest. A month later, I started freelancing with Professional Artists and signed with 44 West Entertainment.
Then that fall, I married director Jess Chayes.
Not a bad year.
PETER AND THE STARCATCHER
Production (First National Tour)
August 15, 2013-May 25, 2014
August 15-September 1, 2013: The Denver Center (Denver, CO)
September 17-29, 2013: AT&T Performing Arts Center (Dallas, TX)
October 15-20, 2013: The Hobby Center (Houston, TX)
October 22-27, 2013: Majestic Theatre (San Antonio, TX)
October 29-November 3, 2013: Moore Theater (Seattle, WA)
November 5-December 1, 2013: Curran Theatre (San Francisco, CA)
December 3, 2013-January 12, 2014: The Ahmanson Theatre (Los Angeles, CA)
January 14-January 19, 2014: Gammage Theater (Tempe, AZ)
January 21-January 23, 2014: Wharton Center (East Lansing, MI)
January 28-February 16, 2014: Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.)
February 18-February 23, 2014: Bushnell Memorial Theater (Hartford, CT)
February 25-March 2: Providence Performing Arts Center (Providence, RI)
March 4-March 5, 2014: Stanley Theatre (Utica, NY)
March 7-March 9, 2014: Peabody Opera House (St. Louis, MO)
March 11-March 16, 2014: Orpheum Theatre (Minneapolis, MN)
February 25-February 26, 2014: Harris Center (Folsom, CA)
March 28-March 30, 2014: McCallum Theatre (Palm Desert, CA)
April 2-13, 2014: Bank of America Theatre (Chicago, IL)
April 29-May 4, 2014: Knight Theater (Charlotte, NC)
May 6-18, 2014: Hippodrome Theatre (Baltimore, MD)
May 20-25, 2014: Heinz Hall (Pittsburgh, PA)
by Rick Elice, dir. Alex Timbers and Roger Rees
with Harter Clingman, Jimonn Cole, Joey deBettencourt, Carl Howell, Nathan Hosner, Rob Franklin Neill, Rachel Prather, John Sanders, Benjamin Schrader, Luke Smith, Megan Stern, Ian Michael Stuart, Edward Tournier, Nick Vidal, and Lee Zarrett
Roles: Smee (u/s - perf), Fighting Prawn (u/s - perf), Mrs. Bumbrake (u/s - perf), Slank (u/s), Alf (u/s)
In the ten months I understudied Peter and the Starcatcher, I went on exactly nine times: four times as Mrs. Bumbrake, three times as Smee, and twice as Fighting Prawn.
I was understudying two other roles as well, and I had to master not just five sets of lines, but each track’s breathlessly choreographed staging, songs in five-part harmony, a ditty on the ukulele, a sexy mermaid dance, and a legion of accents, from R.P. to Cockney to Western to Northern to Scottish to Mexican to an "unplaceable island dialect".
Every one of those nine performances was revelatory. And challenging.
Even more challenging were the other 250-odd performances, during which I stood in the wings or sat in the house or waited in the dressing room.
I'd never gone so many months without performing on a regular basis — not since elementary school.
(Childhood’s the last time most people played make-believe; for me, it's the last time I didn't.)
Still, I was incredibly lucky to spend a year working on Rick's remarkable play — a multivariegated prequel to Peter Pan — and to work closely with Roger Rees on his and Alex Timbers’ endlessly inventive production.
Roger died a year later, at the age of 70.
HOME/SICK
Production (College Tour)
January 30-31, 2014
written and created by the ensemble, dir. Jess Chayes
with Edward Bauer (David), Kate Benson (Bernard), Anna Abhau Elliott (Kathy), Luke Harlan (Paul), and Emily Perkins (Anna)
Role: Tommy
The Assembly @ Wesleyan University
The Assembly's first university engagement.
While Starcatcher played the Kennedy Center, I stepped out for a couple of days to remount HOME/SICK at Wesleyan University, where I moderated a post-show discussion with Mark Rudd, a founding member of the Weather Underground.
Ben with former Weatherman Mark Rudd
Barbara Cassidy (right) with Edith Harnick, one of the Visions playwrights
VISIONS
Performance
June 6, 2014
conceived and directed by Barbara Cassidy
with Pernell Walker
Barbara, leading a writing group for seven blind senior citizens, brought in actors to read from their work.
Many of those seven playwrights performed with us.
CROOKED AND NARROW
Independent Film (Feature)
June 27-29, 2014 (Principal Photography)
written and directed by Neal Dhand
with Khan Baykal, Christopher J. Domig, Jon Freda, Lindsay Goranson, Peter Mele, and Brian Anthony Wilson
Role: James
Discreet Charm Productions
Seven years after we’d met working on an indie short, Lindsay Goranson got me an audition for the independent feature Crooked and Narrow, which shot on location in Philadelphia.
The film pits Lindsay’s character against a crooked cop played by Brian Wilson, whose work I knew from The Wire. I played his partner — and to this day Brian calls me “pard'”.
Venal but not violent, my character finds himself literally under the gun when Amy and Warren declare war on each other.
You can view our imdb page here.
Tre Davis (Konstantin) welcomes Arkadina (Kate Benson), Trigorin (Ben), and Dorn (Chris Hurt).
SEAGULLMACHINE
Workshop
July 15-16, 2014
by Anton Chekhov and Heiner Muller, dir. Jess Chayes and Nic Benacerraf
with Edward Bauer (Medvedenko), Kate Benson (Arkadina/Gertrude), W. Tre Davis (Konstantin/Hamlet), Anna Abhau Elliott (Masha), Chris Hurt (Dorn), Matt Korahais (Shamrayev), Emily Louise Perkins (Nina/Ophelia), Carrie Ann Quinn (Paulina), and Tom Walker (Sorin)
Role: Trigorin
The Assembly @ the undergroundzero festival
Nic Benacerraf had a crazy idea: mash together Anton Chekhov's The Seagull and Heiner Muller's Hamletmachine.
I got to know Tre Davis during this workshop, and we still get together from time to time to read through scenes from Othello.
THE PROPOSITIONAL FUNCTION
Workshop
September 22-25, 2014
written and directed by Barbara Cassidy
with Amy Jo Jackson, Rob Franklin Neill, and Brett Robinson
Role: X
JACK
Thanks to support from Alec Duffy and JACK, Barbara expanded her solo show to incorporate three new characters (Amy, Rob, and Brett): mysterious narrators whose perspectives may or may not reflect the central strangeness of my unsettled, unsettling protagonist.
Edward Bauer, Ray Campbell, Terrell Wheeler, and Ben in That Poor Dream
THAT POOR DREAM
Production
October 4-26, 2014
TEXT BY BEN BECKLEY AND THE ASSEMBLY
dir. Jess Chayes
with Edward Bauer, Ray Campbell, Moti Margolin, Emily Louise Perkins, and Terrell Wheeler
Role: Bentley Drummle
The Assembly @ The New Ohio
Jocelyn Kuritsky in That Poor Dream
A year after leaving the show and relinquishing the role of Miss Havisham to tour with Peter and the Starcatcher, I wrote myself back into That Poor Dream as Bentley Drummle, a treacherous trustifarian with a violent streak.
(I also wrote some crucial scenes for Pip, Magwitch, Havisham, and Estella — one of them satirizing my own Pip-like pretensions about craft beer.)
Near the end of the show, I dropped character and offered a personal monologue about my own great expectations as a kid, and the ways they’d been shaken by disappointment and depression.
”When you show a lot of promise early on, your achievements start to define you and if you’re not careful, you find yourself engaged in a struggle for perfection so relentless that finally, only the future is real. Your entire waking life just kind of fades into the background.
I think that’s why it’s taken me so long to learn to be in the world.
But I am learning.”
Reviews: TimeOut NY
DYING FOR IT
Production
December 11, 2014-January 18, 2015
text by Moira Buffini, freely adapted from Nikolai Erdman's The Suicide
dir. Neil Pepe
with Mia Barron, Nathan Dame, Patch Darragh, Clea Lewis, Peter Maloney, Andrew Mayer, Mary Beth Peil, Jeanine Serralles, Joey Slotnick, Robert Stanton and C.J. Wilson
Role: Yegor Timoveivich
Atlantic Theater Company
(photos by Ahron F. Foster)
There are about fifteen Off Broadway theater companies with annual operating budgets of over $2 million that mount full seasons of new plays. Paying actors a living wage and producing the kind of risk-taking work rarely seen on Broadway, these theaters had always been where I dreamed of working.
Eleven years after moving to the city, I'd never worked at any of them, and only once even secured an audition for one.
In late 2014, while lamenting all this to my fiancée, I got two emails: invitations to audition for Atlantic Theater Company and Classic Stage Company.
After I booked Dying For It, I had to turn down the second audition.
actor Megan Ketch
A DOLL'S HOUSE
Closed Reading
January 13-16, 2015
by Henrik Ibsen, dir. Rachel Chavkin
with Megan Ketch, Nikiya Mathis and Anatol Yusef
Role: Dr. Rank
Since we last read the play a year before, I'd seen both a critically acclaimed Doll's House at BAM and Doug Wright’s unnerving Posterity, a chronicle of Ibsen's final days.
I enjoyed both productions, but noticed how they drew their power from formality and stiffness, and I wondered whether a more visceral approach, a raw contemporary immediacy, could work for our particular incarnation of Doll’s House.
PIRATE LA DEE DA
Workshop (Musical)
January 26, 2015
book by Jennifer Crittenden and Gabrielle Greenberg
music and lyrics by Nate Weida, dir. Alison Beatty
with Matthew Cleaver, Paul Eddy, Janna Emig, Ben Katz, Paul Rescigno, Robbie Rescigno, Kelly Rogers, Sydney Sainte, Arielle Siegel, Sara Taylor and Wes Zurick
Role: Captain Grizzlebeard
Atlantic Theater Company
The week after Dying For It closed, I returned to Atlantic to workshop a new children's musical, with an original score by Nate Weida.
(Unfortunately, the production the Atlantic mounted that spring was closed to union actors.)
You can catch a clip of my performance here.
a scene from the premiere of Pirate La Dee Da
KING MICHAEL
Closed Reading
February 20, 2015
by Eric John Meyer
with Ray Campbell, Jean Ann Douglass, and Larry Powell
Roles: Randy, Sneddon, Dr. Klein
Eric’s wrenching take on the final days of Michael Jackson.
Dividing Michael the Icon and Michael the Man into two separate characters (played respectively by a man and a woman), Eric explores the mystery, power, and dysfunction of America’s most famous pop star.
33 DEMON TEETH
Workshop
March 1, 2015
devised by the ensemble
with Stephen Aubrey, Edward Bauer, Nick Benacerraf and Emily Perkins
The Assembly @ IRT
The first workshop of what would become I Will Look Forward to This Later.
Originally inspired by Emily's experiences caring for her aging grandmother, the workshop also incorporated original audio footage of my late acting teacher Gene Lasko and of the radical anarchist writer/director/performer Judith Malina.
Gene, whom I'd interviewed, passed away a couple of months before the workshop, and Judith, whom the company interviewed, died a few weeks later.
We also drew on The Ballad of Narayama, a Kabuki-infused Japanese film which tells the story of a small town where citizens who had reached the age of 70 were taken to the top of the mountain of Narayama and left to die there. The film's central character, an old woman at peace with her impending abandonment, still has all of her teeth, and some of the villagers mock her for having "33 demon teeth".
You can read my blog entry on the process here.
Nick Benacerraf in the first workshop of what would become I Will Look Forward To This Later.
EMPIRE TRAVEL AGENCY
Closed Workshop
April 7, 2015
by Paul Cohen, dir. Teddy Bergman
with Gardiner Comfort
Woodshed Collective
The fifth project I've developed with Woodshed Collective.
Empire Travel Agency is an immersive theatrical experience. Over the course of the performance, the audience uncovers a cast international conspiracy, with profound implications for the future of the human race.
HEARTPLAY
Benefit Performance
April 13, 2015
by Heiner Muller, dir. Jess Chayes
The Assembly @ The New Ohio
After a year studying Kabuki dance, I choreographed a dance sequence for this incarnation of Heartplay.
Ben, Steve Aubrey, and Edward Bauer in Heartplay.
Thousands lined up to attend the all-night Night of Philosophy.
A NIGHT OF PHILOSOPHY -
PHILOSOPHY IN THE BOUDOIR
Performance
April 25, 2015 (midnight to 5:30 AM)
by The Marquis de Sade
with Chris Ghaffari, Jed Peterson and Jeremy Xido
Role: Madame de Saint-Ange
Cultural Institute of France @ The Ukrainian Institute
All night, in an intimate upstairs room, lounging among the audience, the four of us performed the Marquis de Sade's infamous 300-page masterpiece in near-entirety.
Spectators had braved the late hour, brutal weather, and long lines to get into the event.
LA PRINCESA
Reading
April 26, 2015
by Hank Willenbrink, dir. Jose Zayas
with Eliza Bent, Ryan McCarthy, Greg Perri and Liz Ramos
Role: The Grand Inquisitor
JACK
Hank Willenbrink chairs the drama program at The University of Scranton, where he's brought in several brilliant downtown New York theater artists like Eliza Bent, Jess Chayes, and Jose Zayas.
Chronicling the strange, true story of the only female Jesuit in the history of the Catholic Church, La Princesa marries medieval content to modern vernacular.
playwright Hank Willenbrink
playwright Stacy Osei-Kuffour
MFA WRITING WORKSHOP
Closed Reading
May 3, 2015
works-in-progress by Stacy Osei-Kuffour and others
under the direction of Arthur Kopit
with Eric Lockley, Larry Powell and Christina Pumariega
Hunter College, MFA Playwrighting @ The Lark Play Development Center
Though I know both his plays and his only son, I'd never actually met Arthur Kopit before this workshop.
As you might expect from his long and wide-ranging career, Kopit is a warm and knowledgeable guy, and a real presence even in a low-key setting like this college classroom.
GHOSTS IN THE TAPESTRY
Workshop Production
May 13-15, 2015
by Seth Moore, dir. Matt Dickson
with Shyko Amos, Alex Herrald, Clinton Lowe, Brian Quijada and Lilli Stein
Roles: Russian Cab Driver, English Waiter, Bronx Bartender, Businessman, Therapist, Old Drunk
The Claque @ The Sheen Center
An associative memory play that takes place in the mind of a blind musician.
Originally conceived as a radio drama, Ghosts in the Tapestry was developed by Matt Dickson and the ensemble into a fully staged workshop production.
TROJAN WOMEN
Staged Reading
May 18, 2015
based on the play by Euripides, freely adapted by Alexandra Silber
dir. Carolyn Cantor
with Jacqueline Antaramian, Cody Bohem, Bettina Bresnan, Kersti Bryan, Ben Davis, Mili Diaz, Amy Jo Jackson, Jeb Kreager, Alexis Molnar, Nikka Lanzarone, Erica Malachowski, Emily Nies, Marissa O'Donnell, Daniel Rowan, Alley Scott, Iris Sharp, Alexandra Silber, Alexandra Socha, Liana Wright Mark, Daniel Yearwood, and Emily Woo Zeller
Role: Teucros
Dutch Kills @ Shetler Studios
Broadway musical veteran Alexandra Silber had recently adapted, directed and starred in Euripides' Trojan Women at Pace University. Helmed by prolific director Carolyn Cantor, this workshop brought together many actors whose work I knew from professional plays and musicals alongside a chorus made up of Al's student actors from Pace.
The process reminded me of Cato (2008), another classical drama with a non-equity ensemble supporting professional actors in the leading roles.
Only this time, I was on the other side.
MAYBE NEVER FELL
Reading
June 6, 2015
by Howard Meyer, dir. Jenn Haltman
with Anita Anthonj, Alexander Moitzi and Ward Riley
Role: Max
Axial Theatre
I played a Jewish American businessman who has to face his own deep-seated fears and prejudices when he falls in love with a German woman.
playwright Howard Meyer
playwright Steve Aubrey
THE PEOPLE FROM PORLOCK
Closed Reading
June 8, 2015
by Stephen Aubrey, dir. Jess Chayes
with Edward Bauer, Emily Caffery, Jess Cummings, and May Treuhaft-Ali
Role: Tim
The Assembly
Steve Aubrey wrote a play about an intrepid group of revolutionaries who seek to liberate the world from the scourge of the American Dream by disseminating classic works of American literature. He also wrote a play about an office of professionally stymied, sexually frustrated co-workers who yearn to break free from their humdrum surroundings.
They happen to be the same play.
THE TOWER
Web Series
June 21, 2015 (Principal Photography)
with William Barnet and Felipe Bonilla
Role: Alden
A comedic web series that follows two clueless friends who work for a secret government agency trying to bring down terrorists.
actor Layla Khoshnoudi
THE PEOPLE FROM PORLOCK
Staged Reading
June 23, 2015
by Stephen Aubrey, dir. Jess Chayes
with Edward Bauer, Jean Ann Douglass, Layla Khoshnoudi, and Shayna Small
Role: Tim
The Assembly with Planet Connections @ The Paradise Factory
The Assembly returned to Porlock, this time as a fundraiser to benefit The Shepherd Poverty Consortium.
I WILL LOOK FORWARD TO THIS LATER
Workshop Production
July 15-18, 2015
by Kate Benson and Emily Louise Perkins
dir. Jess Chayes
with Edward Bauer, Vinie Burrows, James Himelsbach, Linda Larson, and Emily Louise Perkins
Role: Samuel
The Assembly @ The New Ohio
I played a failed novelist obsessed with his famous father, a Saul Bellow-esque monster whose recent death has done nothing to dim his toxic presence in Samuel’s life.
playwright Larry Powell
TITTY BOY
Closed Reading
July 27, 2015
by Larry Powell
with Lynne Anders, Eric Berryman, Joshua Bonzie, Nick Ducassi, Amber Iman, Danny Johnson, Ambien Mitchell, C. Kelly Wright
Role: Dad
The Lark Play Development Center
About to start rehearsals for Lucas Hnath's hit The Christians at Playwrights Horizons, Larry Powell wrote this riff on the classic children's book Are You My Mother? that explored one young African-American man's alienation from American society.
He eventually made it into a feature film.
I played one of the protagonist's white parents, who break the news to him, after eighteen years of lying, that he's not their biological son.
Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival-
“EVELYN SHAFFER AND THE CHANCE OF A LIFETIME”
Production (Musical)
August 5-August 8, 2015
music by Andy Roninson, lyrics and book by Greg Edwards
dir. Jess Chayes
with Rob Hille and Victoria Huston-Elem
Role: Tim Beck
Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival @ Classic Stage Company
Greg and Andy’s “ten-minute musical infused with a 32-bit score” follows intrepid programmer Evelyn Shaffer as she takes on a fearsome final boss: the patriarchal head of Moonbeam Studios.
Out of hundreds of applications, forty short plays were chosen for the Sam French Festival. The six plays eventually chosen for publication included both productions Jess was directing: “Evelyn Shaffer” and “Throws of Love”.
actor Sanjit DeSilva
A DOLL'S HOUSE
Closed Reading
August 20, 2015
by Henrik Ibsen, dir. Rachel Chavkin
with Sanjit DeSilva (Torvald), Alex Hurt, and Megan Ketch (Nora)
Role: Dr. Rank
Playwright Bess Wohl, who I’d later work with on Small Mouth Sounds, joined us for the reading.
I WILL LOOK FORWARD TO THIS LATER
Workshop
August 25-August 30, 2015
by Kate Benson and Emily Louise Perkins
dir. Jess Chayes
with Edward Bauer, Vinie Burrows, Linda Larson, Emily Louise Perkins, and Sturgis Walker
The Assembly @ NACL
ANNO DOMINORUM
Production
September 9-September 10, 2015
BY BEN BECKLEY
Ben Beckley, Emily Louise Perkins, Edward Bauer, Anna Abhau Elliott, and Ramon Torres
The Assembly with Green Plays
A meditation cult struggles for clarity in the wake of its leader's sudden passing.
My play was inspired by the 16th-century Münster rebellion, in which Anabaptists violently seized control of a German city in the name of a radical new vision of God, and by my experiences working in a consensus-based theater company.
JOLEY
Closed Reading
September 23, 2015
by Caitlin Saylor Stephens
with Nate Miller, Emily Perkins Margolin, Laura Ramadei, and Stephanie Weeks
Role: Hubby
The Lark Play Development Center
Inspired by Oprah, a battered woman in rural Appalachia seeks revenge on her abusive husband.
playwright Caitlin Saylor Stephens
DUE TO EVENTS
Workshop
October 6-9, 2015
by Jean Ann Douglass and Eric John Meyer
with Laura Campbell (Cat), Anne Gridley, and David Skeist (Voice)
Role: Lawyer
Human Head Performance Group
What defines success for an actor is an existential question.
Anne, a downtown theater darling, is best known for her celebrated experimental work with Nature Theatre of Oklahoma.
Laura, who has major TV and regional credits, has been criminally underutilized in New York theater.
David, like me an Ivy League grad who acted at The Flea, develops new projects with his experimental theater company, and has premiered work with experimental icon Richard Foreman.
All three of them have MFAs from Columbia University.
What defines success?
Is it critical acclaim? Touring internationally? Making your own work?
A prestigious MFA? An Ivy League degree?
HAIL OBLIVION
Staged Reading (Musical)
October 12, 2015
music by Stephanie Johnstone, lyrics and book by Stephanie Johnstone and Josh William Gelb
with Bryce Pinkham, Ato Blankson-Wood, Julian Fleischer, Amber Gray, and Rick Burkhardt
JACK
An inspired musical fantastia about the gory glories of piracy — and its attendant horrors.
Hail Oblivion was made into a live recording.
PROTECTUS
Staged Reading
November 2, 2015
by Helayne Schiff, dir. Jessi Hill
with Teddy Bergman, Dean Imperial, Liv Rooth, and Jeanine Serralles
Role: Stan/FBI Agent
Naked Angels
On September 11, 2001, debris from the World Trade Center smashed through Helayne's apartment window. She wrote this remarkable play about surviving the terror of 9/11 and the looting that followed it.
You can read more about Helayne's experience here.
EASY LIVING
Independent Film (Feature)
November 9, 2015 (Principal Photography)
written and directed by Adam Keleman
with Caroline Dhavernas, Elizabeth Marvel, and C.J. Wilson
Role: Man In Bar
A week after Protectus reunited me with Dying For It’s Jeanine Serralles, Easy Living brought me back in contact with castmate C.J. Wilson.
I hadn't seen either of them since the show closed in January, and was shocked to discover Jeanine was six months pregnant.
LATTER DAYS
Staged Reading
November 14, 2015
dir. Jess Chayes
with Moti Margolin and Tony Torn
Dutch Kills
A staged reading of my first full-length play.
Tony Torn, a fearless actor, took on the role of a self-proclaimed monarch (demented? visionary?) who for eleven years has sat on a gutted toilet under the streets of New York, waiting for the world to end.
Moti Margolin as his steadfast servant Dead Bill conveyed both a natural sweetness and a subtly simmering resentment.
The play is about our need to believe in things and the impossibility of believing in things. It's something I understood from growing up in the Methodist Church and from my work in the theater, where thousands of us wait endlessly for a grand apotheosis of career and art that may never come.
Jess directed, as always, with incisive grace.
SWIMMERS
Closed Reading
November 16, 2015
by Rachel Bonds, dir. Mike Donahue
with Coleman Domingo and Hannah Cabell
Role: Yuri
The Lark Play Development Center
Coleman Domingo (Passing Strange, Lincoln) and Hannah Cabell (Zero Hour) are two of my favorite actors, and it was a thrill to read with them.
It was thrilling also to read a new play by Rachel Bonds, who has an uncanny ability to capture the sadness at the heart of so much contemporary life.
playwright Rachel Bonds
Ben with Linda Larson
I WILL LOOK FORWARD TO THIS LATER
Closed Workshop
November 24, 2015
by Kate Benson and Emily Louise Perkins
dir. Jess Chayes
with Edward Bauer, Vinie Burrows, James Himelsbach, Linda Larson, and Emily Louise Perkins
The Assembly @ IRT
Overwhelmed with insecurity, my character was rarely able to finish a sentence.
(“I—, I don’t—, I—”).
I found this frustrating as hell at the time, but now I draw on it constantly. You have to memorize not just the language you say, I found, but the language you can’t articulate.
DUE TO EVENTS
Closed Reading
December 2, 2015
directed and written by Eric John Meyer and Jean Ann Douglass
with Laura Campbell, Anne Gridley and David Skeist
Role: Lawyer
Human Head Performance Group
Jean Ann and Eric had done a deep dive into alternate realities…
…and they cut nearly all of it. The play was rich enough — and confusing enough — without it.
Kill your darlings.
Ben with Eric John Meyer, Laura Campbell, and Frederick the Squirrel.
playwright Liza Powell O’Brien and her husband
In Frame
Closed Reading
December 9, 2015
by Liza Powell O'Brien
Role: Luke
Lark Play Development Center
A play is about the complex power dynamic between a famous fashion photographer and his beautiful young model.
The wife of a certain late-night talk show host, Liza knows something about the vicissitudes of fame and beauty.
MISTLESHOW
Workshop
December 10, 2015
by Jess Chayes, Kim Davies, Caitlin Saylor Stephens
dir. Jess Chayes and Sarah Krohn
with Jess Chayes, Laura Ramadei, and Caitlin Saylor Stephens
Roles: David Mamet, Hubby, Boss
New Georges' Jam @ The Brick
I played — in decreasing order of verbosity — an irate David Mamet, an overbearing boss, and a recently murdered husband.
The boss was featured in a brilliant excerpt of a gender-flipped Marx Brothers play — written, performed, and directed by Jess Chayes.
It's the first and only time I've gotten to act with my wife.
