Benjamin Benne

Benjamin Benne

Benjamin Benne is a 2nd year MFA Playwriting Candidate at the Yale School of Drama and represented by Paradigm Talent Agency. He is Arizona Theatre Company's 2019 National Latinx Playwriting Award winner (ALMA), American Blues Theater's 2019 Blue Ink Playwriting Award winner (ALMA), a 2019 Kennedy Center/KCACTF Latinx Playwriting Award recipient (IN HIS HANDS; OR THE GAY CHRISTIAN PLAY), a 2017 Robert...
Benjamin Benne is a 2nd year MFA Playwriting Candidate at the Yale School of Drama and represented by Paradigm Talent Agency. He is Arizona Theatre Company's 2019 National Latinx Playwriting Award winner (ALMA), American Blues Theater's 2019 Blue Ink Playwriting Award winner (ALMA), a 2019 Kennedy Center/KCACTF Latinx Playwriting Award recipient (IN HIS HANDS; OR THE GAY CHRISTIAN PLAY), a 2017 Robert Chesley/Victor Bumbalo Playwriting Award winner (QUERENCIA: AN IMAGINED AUTOBIOGRAPHY ABOUT FORBIDDEN FRUITS), and a Playwrights' Center Affiliated Writer (2017-18 McKnight Fellowship in Playwriting, 2016-17 Many Voices Fellowship). His plays have been produced/developed by the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's National Playwrights Conference (2018), The Playwrights Realm's Scratchpad Series (2017-18), The Lark's Playwrights' Week (2016), Roundabout Theatre Company, The Old Globe, Two River Theater, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Boston Court Pasadena, Pillsbury House + Theatre, Teatro Milagro, A Contemporary Theatre, Theatre Battery, Annex Theatre, Forward Flux, Umbrella Project, and Parley, among others. Additionally, his plays have been finalists for The Playwrights' Center's Jerome Fellowship, Princess Grace Award, SPACE on Ryder Farm's Working Farm, Ingram New Works Lab, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Headwaters New Play Festival, Austin Playhouse Festival of New American Plays, and a P73 Playwriting Fellowship semifinalist. Benjamin's work was featured on Steppenwolf Theatre Company's The Mix and 50 Playwrights Project's Best Unproduced Latin@/x Plays 2018 & 2019 lists.

Plays

  • the waavvves: an ovidian play by Benjamin Benne
    Cast: 
    5
    ·
    Genre: adventure, comedy + 11 more
    Genre: adventure, comedy, dark comedy, drama, experimental, fantasy, melodrama, movement/physical, political, romantic comedy, science fiction, tragedy, verse
    Five babies are birthed onto a beach. A wave rolls in and out. They are a year older. 100 waves, 100 years of change: in language, movement, and relationships. Then a 507-year-old clam appears and 500 years unfold in a blink. All while the omnipresent jellyfish observe, multiplying and multiplying, just as they have for 650 million years.
  • What \\Washed Ashore //Astray by Benjamin Benne
    Recommendations: 2
    ·
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 7 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama, experimental, fantasy, movement/physical, political, tragedy, verse
    Twin sisters, Cat and Chris, are reunited in their beloved family cabin on the Pacific Northwest shoreline. But everything has aged: the cottage, their bodies. Then, dead things wash ashore, conch shells become uninhabited, ice caves melt, the water surrounding the cabin comes up higher and higher...and one of them will die within the year.
  • In His Hands; or the gay christian play by Benjamin Benne
    Recommendations: 2
    ·
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 8 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama, experimental, faith-based, fantasy, movement/physical, romantic comedy, tragedy, verse
    Winner, Kennedy Center KCACTF Latinx Playwriting Award

    This is a list of things Christian believes in: logic, banana Laffy Taffy, video games, and Daniel. This is a list of things Christian doesn't believe in: caffeine, alcohol, monogamy, and God. Daniel, a Mario Kart wizard and aspiring Lutheran pastor, is falling for Christian. But as these men explore the potential of their new...
    Winner, Kennedy Center KCACTF Latinx Playwriting Award

    This is a list of things Christian believes in: logic, banana Laffy Taffy, video games, and Daniel. This is a list of things Christian doesn't believe in: caffeine, alcohol, monogamy, and God. Daniel, a Mario Kart wizard and aspiring Lutheran pastor, is falling for Christian. But as these men explore the potential of their new relationship, voices from Christian's past threaten to overpower the connection they share -- with one another, and something bigger than themselves. [synopsis by dramaturg Sarah Lunnie]
  • Alma (f.k.a. #nowall) by Benjamin Benne
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 5 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama, fantasy, political, tragedy, verse
    Selection, The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's National Playwrights Conference
    Winner, Arizona Theatre Company's National Latinx Playwriting Award
    Winner, American Blues Theater's Blue Ink Playwriting Award

    Working mom Alma has singlehandedly raised her daughter, Angel, on tough love, home-cooked comida, and lots of prayers. But on the eve of the all-important...
    Selection, The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's National Playwrights Conference
    Winner, Arizona Theatre Company's National Latinx Playwriting Award
    Winner, American Blues Theater's Blue Ink Playwriting Award

    Working mom Alma has singlehandedly raised her daughter, Angel, on tough love, home-cooked comida, and lots of prayers. But on the eve of the all-important SAT, Alma discovers her daughter isn’t at home studying. A schooling and la chancla await Angel at home—but so does a creeping realization that more’s at stake than just a test score. A sacrifice from Alma’s past weighs heavy on their present; now, Alma fears that her worst nightmare may soon be their reality. Will the American Dream cost them a life together? [synopsis by dramaturg Catherine Rodriguez]
  • q u e r e n c i a: an imagined autobiography about forbidden fruits by Benjamin Benne
    Recommendations: 11
    ·
    Cast: 
    5
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 4 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama, fantasy, movement/physical, tragedy
    Selection, The Playwrights Realm's Scratchpad Series
    Winner, Robert Chesley/Victor Bumbalo Playwriting Award
    Winner, The Playwrights' Center's McKnight Fellowship in Playwriting
    Winner, The Playwrights' Center's Many Voices Fellowship

    What's a boy to do when his favorite fruit is banana in a world that says he's gotta love mangoes? "...
    Selection, The Playwrights Realm's Scratchpad Series
    Winner, Robert Chesley/Victor Bumbalo Playwriting Award
    Winner, The Playwrights' Center's McKnight Fellowship in Playwriting
    Winner, The Playwrights' Center's Many Voices Fellowship

    What's a boy to do when his favorite fruit is banana in a world that says he's gotta love mangoes? "querencia" (a Spanish word having to do with the longing to find or return to a place that feels like home) is a magical coming-of-age story about a young boy named Milo’s search for belonging as he grapples with friends, family, and his sexual identity, guided by a mysterious character called La Bruja.
  • at the very bottom of a body of water by Benjamin Benne
    Recommendations: 6
    ·
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: adventure, comedy + 8 more
    Genre: adventure, comedy, dark comedy, drama, experimental, fable/folktale, fantasy, movement/physical, romantic comedy, tragedy
    Selection, The Lark's Playwrights' Week

    Marina is being haunted. Every night, she dreams about drowning. Every week, she makes catfish soup. But when this ritual meal is disrupted by the disappearance of her fishmonger, she can no longer swim in the routine circle of her solitary life. She embarks on a surreal quest--all the way down to the darkest place she can imagine--to confront the...
    Selection, The Lark's Playwrights' Week

    Marina is being haunted. Every night, she dreams about drowning. Every week, she makes catfish soup. But when this ritual meal is disrupted by the disappearance of her fishmonger, she can no longer swim in the routine circle of her solitary life. She embarks on a surreal quest--all the way down to the darkest place she can imagine--to confront the ghost that is holding her captive...or rather, the ghost that she's been holding captive.