Benjamin Benne

Commissioned by Seattle Repertory Theatre

Sean and Nathanael are cousins, born just a few weeks apart in 1988. Every year they visit the same beach in Southern California (first as children, then as adults) to swim in the ocean, eat carne asada, and witness how their lives, their bodies, and the natural world around them have changed year after year. Spanning 10 billion years in the life of the earth, Benjamin Benne’s Seattle Rep 20x30 Commission is a theatrical meditation on human and ecological transformation, intimacy between men, and the cycles of life and death that shape our existence. [synopsis by dramaturg Paul Adolphsen]

Commissioned by South Coast Repertory Theatre

It’s Christmas Eve in Southern California and Rosie’s family gathers in her newly-renovated kitchen to make chuchitos. Her grandchildren are eager to learn and document every part of the recipe for this traditional Guatemalan dish she has prepared her entire life. But Rosie’s cooking has more to do with intuition than metrics, and recording and remembering are entirely different things. An expansive and lyrical intergenerational story that spans nearly two decades, Fantasma explores how we preserve our culture, how we assimilate, and the cost of what we leave behind.

Winner, Dr. Kerry English Artist Award
Selection, Ojai Playwrights Conference
Finalist, The Playwrights' Center's McKnight National Residency & Commission
Finalist, O'Neill National Playwrights Conference
Finalist, P73 Playwriting Fellowship
Semi-Finalist, Premiere Stages' New Play Festival

Siblings Mary and Johnny were raised in the same Christian cult. Now in their 40s, the still religious Mary is having a crisis of faith and is in need of a miracle. Her now secular brother offers a controversial solution. When reunited on a remote mountain in New Mexico, surrounded by energy vortexes, rumors of aliens, and a golden eyelash palm pit viper named Daisy, they wonder: Did they ever know the same God?

WORLD PREMIERE: Portland Stage (Portland ME), 2024

Grand Prize Winner, Portland Stage's Clauder Competition
Selection, Latinx New Play Festival at La Jolla Playhouse
Finalist, Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's National Playwrights Conference
Finalist, Playwrights Foundation's Bay Area Playwrights Festival

A father and his sons spread the ashes of his wife/their mother in their backyard garden. When a giant zucchini manifests overnight, they each begin to develop language for their individual experiences of loss through their interactions with the supernatural vegetable. But can they also develop a communal vocabulary to express their grief with each other?

CHICAGO PREMIERE: First Floor Theater (Chicago IL), 2024
WORLD PREMIERE: Mosaic Theater Company (Washington DC), 2022

Selection, Roundabout Underground Reading Series
Selection, New Harmony Project Residency
Winner, Kennedy Center/KCACTF Latinx Playwriting Award
Gold Prize, Portland Stage's Clauder Competition
Finalist, Kitchen Dog Theater's New Play Festival
Finalist, Playwrights Foundation's Bay Area Playwrights Festival

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]

PRODUCTION #8 (forthcoming): Passage Theatre Company (Trenton NJ), 2024
PRODUCTION #7: Chance Theater (Anaheim CA), 2024
PRODUCTION #6: The Spot (Ketchum ID), 2023
PRODUCTION #5: Central Square Theater (Cambridge MA), 2023
REGIONAL PREMIERE: Curious Theatre Company (Denver CO), 2023
WORLD PREMIERE (in cooperation with CTG): American Blues Theater (Chicago IL), 2022
SEATTLE PREMIERE: ArtsWest (Seattle WA), 2022
WORLD PREMIERE (in cooperation with ABT): CTG Kirk Douglas Theatre (Los Angeles CA), 2022

Winner, Arizona Theatre Company's National Latinx Playwriting Award
Winner, American Blues Theater's Blue Ink Playwriting Award
Selection, The Playwrights' Center's Core Writer Program
Selection, Denver Center for the Performing Arts' Colorado New Play Summit
Selection, The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's National Playwrights Conference

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]

WORLD PREMIERE: Pillsbury House Theatre (Minneapolis MN), 2023

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.

Finalist, Williamstown Theatre Festival's L. Arnold Weissberger Award
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.

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
Finalist, The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's National Playwrights Conference
Finalist, Princess Grace Award

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.