Benjamin Curns: About the Artist

 

Click here to listen to his interview

Benjamin Curtis is the Director and Fight Director for the American Shakespeare Company’s production of Macbeth, which is part of the “2017-18 Wicked Folly National Tour.”

Benjamin has been an Artistic Associate with the American Shakespeare Center since 2001.  During his tenure with the company, he has served as an actor, musician, company manager, director, and fight director  in many different capacities.  He has toured the country on multiple times and has appeared in nine “Actor’s Renaissance” seasons and five summer seasons.    twice as an actor (Bright Heaven of Invention and Excellent Motion tours) and once as the Company Manager for the 2002 Beguile the Rich tour.  He has additionally appeared as an actor and musician in nine Actors’ Renaissance Seasons and five Summer/Fall seasons. 

New York Shakespeare credits include A Midsummer Night’s Dream (American Globe Theatre), Taming of the Shrew, Henry IV (parts 1&2) (ShakespeareNYC), Henry V (Inwood Shakespeare Festival), Richard III (Clemente Soto Velez), Merchant of Venice (Producer’s Club).

Directing credits include Romeo & Juliet, Julius Caesar, Much Ado About Nothing (National Tours); Shakespeare On Ice, ‘Diggers (Blackfriars Conference); 2 Henry IV, All’s Well That Ends Well, Othello, The Winter’s Tale, The Tempest, Cymbeline (American Shakespeare Center Theatre Camp).  Assistant Director credits include The Importance of Being Earnest, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Macbeth, and Love’s Labour’s Lost.

Directing credits outside of ASC include Macbeth (Excellent Motion Shakespeare Company), Arsenic and Old Lace (Wohlfahrt Haus Dinner Theatre) and The Boy (Philadelphia Fringe Festival), staged reading of King Lear (PlayMakers Repertory Company/Burning Coal Theatre Company)

Benjamin has directed fights for ASC productions of Macbeth, Cyrano DeBergerac, Comedy of Errors, Romeo & Juliet, Julius Caesar, Cymbeline, and the national touring productions of Romeo & Juliet, Julius Caesar, 1 Henry IV, Hamlet, and Othello.  Fight credits outside ASC include Macbeth (Roust Theatre Company); Superior Donuts (with ASC alum Jeremy West) Henry IV (Live Arts); Tyger’s Heart, King John, The Maid’s Tragedy and others (Mary Baldwin University), Disgraced (PlayMakers Repertory Company), As You Like It (UNC Chapel Hill Kenan Theatre Company)

Benjamin is a member of Actors Equity Association, a certified Actor/Combatant with the Society of American Fight Directors and holds a black belt in American Freestyle Karate.  He received his MFA in Acting from The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and his BA in History from SUNY Cortland.