2020-2021
“You need not leave your room…. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”
— Franz Kafka
Ben in KlaxAlterian Sequester
Weeks before the world shut down, I played the Duke of Cornwall in a celebrated production of King Lear.
Six months later, I played a guy who, after playing Cornwall in a celebrated production of King Lear, wonders what it means to be an actor who can’t act. Written by Stephen Aubrey, that play draws heavily from the archive you’re reading now. One of the few online “productions” approved by Actors Equity, it gave me just enough weeks to maintain my union health insurance.
2020 was that kind of year: unexpected opportunities in the midst of the unsettling monotony of quarantine.
A new member of the exclusive Actors Center, I studied remotely with legendary teachers in scene study, clown, Alexander Technique, and playwriting, and as a co-artistic director of The Assembly, I did some remote teaching of my own, at Dartmouth.
Asa Wember and I harnessed our smartphones to create an augmented reality experience (www.KlaxAlteria.com) that garnered rave reviews on both sides of the Atlantic, in The Times and The Scotsman (★★★★). In 2021, in Junction, we crafted an AR journey in VT spanning a mile-long walk and 150 years.
One of six plays selected from the 550+ submissions, my play “Outside Time, Without Extension” premiered at The Red Bull Short New Play Festival with Tony-nominee Will Jackson Harper (The Good Place, Love Life) and his partner Ali Ahn (Supernatural, The Other Two). And I voiced and embodied an animated version of my lovelown cockroach in Krista Knight’s Crush.
That fall, opposite the great Francois Battiste, I played Jacob Marley in a Broadway engagement of A Christmas Carol at San Francisco’s stunning 2,400-seat Golden Gate Theater. The story of a man rejoining humanity after years of isolation, A Christmas Carol mirrored our own experience, returning to the stage after years of quarantine.
Strange times.
outside time, without extension
Workshop Production
January 10, 2020
by BEN BECKLEY, dir. Virginia Ogden
with Holden Harris and Lexi Warden
“Thirsty Theater” at Northern Stage
My ten-minute play - now published and available for production - chronicles a hundred years of joys, hopes, anxieties, and possibilities. Every minute represents a decade of time, and David and Sarah grow up and grow old together, trying to find meaning and solace in the little time they have.
KING LEAR
Production
January 22-February 29, 2020
by William Shakespeare, dir. Stephen Brown-Fried
with Jolly Abraham, Stella Asa, Starla Benford, Rajesh Bose, Cassandra Bissell, Kate Budney, Hannah Haile, Robert David Grant, Kevin Grullon, Holden Harris, Jamie Horton, Max Hunter, Jon Norman Schneider, Cherene Snow, Damian Thompson, and Lexi Warden
Roles: Cornwall, Doctor
Northern Stage
Returning to Shakespeare was thrilling. Lear was a critical and commercial hit, thanks to our accomplished cast, terrific designers, and inspired director Stephen Brown-Fried, who had been preparing for this production for years.
The eye-gouging Duke of Cornwall, I realized, had something in common with Ted Bundy and Adolf Hitler. All three violent sociopaths saw themselves as being oppressed. Bundy felt threatened by the Women’s Movement, Hitler by the Jews, and Cornwall seems genuinely terrified that Gloucester, whose eyes he plucks out with his bare hands, is a clear and present to his absolute power.
Inventing Anna
Television
Principal Photography January 12, 2020
with Julia Garner
Role: Male Suit
Netflix, produced by Shonda Rhimes
Klaxalterian sequester
Immersive Internet Experience
March 30, 2020
by Ben Beckley
with Asa Wember
www.klaxalteria.com
crush
Animated Miniseries
July 5, 2020
by Krista Knight, dir. Matt Dickson and Krista Knight
animation by Barry Brinegar
Role: Cockroach
mother of exiles
Reading
July 22, 2020
by Jessica Huang, dir. Seonjae Kim
with Vanessa Kai, Maria-Christina Oliveras, Jennifer Paredes and Ricardo Vazquez
Outside time, without extension
Reading
July 24, 2020
by Ben Beckley, dir. Vivienne Benesch
with Ali Ahn and William Jackson Harper
One of six plays selected from 550+ submissions to the 10th Annual Red Bull Short New Play Festival.
You can read JESSE GREEN’S review in The New York Times here.
DONG XUAN CENTER
Reading
October 5, 2020
by Jesse Jae Hoon Eisenberg, dir. Charlotte Murray
with Veronica Dang, Carolina Do, Dinh James Doan, Nik Duggan, David Huynh, and Michelle Vo
Role: Joseph
My second fascist of the year.
elevator
Film
October 8, 2020
written and directed by Mia Rovegno
with Starr Busby and Daniel K. Isaac
BRIC Lab
Mia Rovegno’s remarkable meditation on bias in the tech industry, and the peril of Big Tech’s godlike ambitions. I played a wild-eyed, smiling tech guru - arguably my third fascist of the year.
The show got into The Public Theater’s prestigious Under the Radar festival in 2022, but unfortunately, COVID shut it down.
A Diamond Princess
Closed Reading
January 14, 2021
written and directed by Hondo Weiss-Richmond
with Jean Ann Douglass and Eric John Meyer
Role: Captain
I played various roles heard over a COVID-era cruise ship intercom, including the ship’s Italian captain.