Ben Schroth

NOW AVAILABLE FROM NEXT STAGE PRESS.
NOW AVAILABLE FROM NEXT STAGE PRESS.
Holmes and Watson fight the greatest evil yet in this spooflicious comedy. Time travelers, a fictional giant lizard and a villain from drive-in movies challenge our deductive hero with evil seduction of every stripe. Watson helps as best he can but is distracted by the call of the wild in the form of both automaton seductresses and an unwillingly cross-dressed assistant. In the end, Holmes must face Godzilla and his own gooey inner demons to save the world from its farcical fate.

NOW AVAILABLE FROM NEXT STAGE PRESS.

"Very funny, wild assed comedy. I like it." -- Matt Lyle, Playwright.

NOW AVAILABLE FROM NEXT STAGE PRESS.

GANYMEDE, a space-age fairy tale, is the nostalgic story of two brothers—one abducted by space aliens and one left behind by the visitors. When the elder brother returns for a visit, his parent’s restful weekend is turned upside-down. Alien enforcers come to take the boy back and, if not for the assistance of a nosy neighbor in disguise, our hero would never find love and even more lamps would be destroyed by tropical fruit.

A family confronts some difficult news. But this family stays a family. As mom says, “family is more than relations. Make your own family.”

IF I AM GOOD takes its style from the hardboiled crime novels that influenced Film Noir. IF I AM GOOD translates this style for characters who had no voice in their own time.

In an era of stifling sexual repression, two men, both unhappy in their marriages, meet by coincidence on a train. An intense sexual encounter ensues. They arrange to meet as often as they can. The older man entices the younger man into a murderous plot to escape into freedom. The boy agrees but things rapidly crash downhill. Hidden relationships are revealed. A final despairing act finishes the young man’s first and last experience of love.

The Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation finalist 2013.
The Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation’s competition judges: “Nice melding…of hard-boiled 30s-40s noir with gay content.” “I like the theatricality and artificiality, at the same time I found it genuinely moving.”

CHERRY ORCHARD, VANYA, 3 SISTERS, AND SEAGULL ALL NOW AVAILABLE!! INQUIRE WITHIN!!

A bold new American English Adaptation of Julius West’s translation of the Chekhov classic by Ben Schroth.

A new American English translation that is true to the original AND immediately playable-- not weighted with scholarship but fresh and vigorous-- Chekhov that doesn't sound British or needlessly old fashioned. This is a text that utilizes consistent modern punctuation that actors will recognize and use to inform their choices. This sounds like spontaneous American English. In this translation, the language becomes transparent thus the drama becomes luminous. A great play reborn.

" – the reality of life slipping away, of the dissolving process. They are sad clowns, redeemed only by being fully felt as people, and not the comic icons they are always threatening to become – failed shamans, whose magic does not work though it has cost them everything to perform." --- Michael Goldman on Chekhov's masterpiece, CHERRY ORCHARD.

RAVES:
"Ben Schroth's colloquial adaptation of Julian West's translation gives an easy, musical feel to the language, with American expressions and Americanized names. It fits into the mission of the company, which is producing classic plays of the 19th and 20th centuries with the aim of making them "alive" for contemporary audiences..." -- DALLAS MORNING NEWS

"Many translations tend towards academic turgidity. Schroth’s adaptation strips away much of the florid nonsense. " -- Alexandra Bonifield, Critical Rant

A new adaptation. New American English translation of a rarely performed masterpiece of World Theatre.

This sounds like spontaneous American English. In this translation, the language becomes transparent and the drama becomes luminous. A great play reborn.

Clear Beautiful American English. Practical dimensions. AUTHENTIC GOETHE!

A deal with the devil propels Faust through a disastrous love affair and into the world of ideas. Striving is all. Self-awareness is the final redemption.

"...the work remains a resonant parable on scientific learning and religion, passion and seduction, independence and love, as well as other subjects. In poetic terms, Goethe places science and power in the context of a morally interested metaphysics. Faust is a scientific empiricist who is forced to confront questions of good and evil, God and the devil, sexuality and mortality." -- Wikki

CHERRY ORCHARD, VANYA, 3 SISTERS, AND SEAGULL ALL NOW AVAILABLE!! INQUIRE WITHIN!

A bold new American English Adaptation of Marion Fell’s translation of the Chekhov classic by Ben Schroth.

A new American English translation that is true to the original AND immediately playable-- not weighted with scholarship but fresh and vigorous-- Chekhov that doesn't sound British or needlessly old fashioned. This is a text that utilizes consistent modern punctuation that actors will recognize and use to inform their choices. This sounds like spontaneous American English. In this translation, the language becomes transparent thus the drama becomes luminous. A great play reborn.

"Chekhov's natural manner, however, isn't the same thing as naturalism. There's a compositional fluidity to the playwriting. Verisimilitude is enlivened with spry theatricality. The artist's invisible hand is always at work, bringing the various elements of the stage picture into conversation, varying the tone so that scenes don't become airless or too heavy and relaxing the strictures so that characters can give voice to their inner thoughts, however scattered or self-deluding."
Charles McNulty --- On Uncle Vanya, LA Times