Meet Bennett!

Ben and I connected in the most bizarre small-world ways this fall. He was guest-blogging for my professor Steve Mentz's blog. For my Introduction to the Profession class, our touchstone text was The Tempest, and Ben was dramaturging for a three-person production of the play in San Francisco with Cutting Ball. We began emailing and discussing my proposal for the Bookend Project, a dual production of Titus Andronicus and The Tempest.

I soon found out that Ben worked as an actor, as well as dramaturg, playwright, director, teacher, and he was interested in submitting a video audition for ADK Shakes's summer season. And despite the fact that Ben lived across the country, we also had quite a few mutual colleagues! It really is a small, theatre world: "But how do you know these people?" Ben's audition video blew us away, and I also had the opportunity to meet him in person on a short NYC visit in the fall. He is just all-around terrific: a brilliant guy, a talented actor, and he has superb comic timing. We are looking forward to working with him this summer, and we can't wait for you to meet him too. I bet you even have some mutual friends.

BENNETT FISHER

Bennett Fisher

(MID: Theseus, Moth; VEN: Antonio, Launcelot Gobbo, Tubal; KIDS: TBA)

Bennett Fisher is a San Francisco-based playwright, director, and actor. He has performed with San Francisco Theater Pub (Henry IV Parts I and II), Marin Shakespeare Company (Antony and Cleopatra), Crowded Fire (The Lysistrata Project), the Pear Ave Theater (Pick Up Ax), Stanford Summer Theater (Elektra), AtmosTheatre (The Frogs), and Brava Women's Theatre (Sincerity Forever), among others. Directing credits include Audience and Ubu Roi for San Francisco Theater Pub and the upcoming world premier of Susan Sobeloff's Merchants for No Nude Men. His first full-length play, Hermes, premiered in San Francisco last fall, where it was hailed as a "daring and extremely intelligent" and "a breathtaking experience in relevant, contemporary theatre" by The Huffington Post. Two more of his full-length plays - Devil of a Time and Don't Be Evil - are slated for full production in 2011-2012. His various short plays have been performed in New York, Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, and New London. He is an associate artist with AtmosTheatre and Threshold Theatre, a founding director of the San Francsico Theater Pub, and the artistic director of the Flying Island Theatre Lab, in residence at the Palo Alto Art Center.

Support Ben's cross-country P.R. with ADK Shakes this summer by adopting him! You can also keep up with him by checking out his website.