Sarah Benson is a British director of avant-garde theatre productions based in
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
.
As a Director of the
Soho Rep
The Soho Repertory Theatre, known as Soho Rep,The official website'now use "Soho", with a lowercase h, as do most articles from th''New York Times''/ref> is an American Off-Broadway theater company based in New York City which is notable for prod ...
, a lower Manhattan-based theatre company with an "audacious taste in plays",
she is notable for her "commitment to adventurous new plays with an experimental bent".
She has been at the company since 2007, and during her tenure, the company has won numerous
Obie award
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards originally given by ''The Village Voice'' newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City. In September 2014, the awards were jointly presented and administered with the A ...
s and
Drama Desk
The Drama Desk Award is an annual prize recognizing excellence in New York theatre. First bestowed in 1955 as the Vernon Rice Award, the prize initially honored Off-Broadway productions, as well as Off-off-Broadway, and those in the vicinity. Fo ...
nominations.
While Benson specializes in noncommercial work, in 2019 she directed an advertisement starring
Michael C. Hall
Michael Carlyle Hall (born February 1, 1971) is an American actor and singer best known for his roles as Dexter Morgan, the titular character in the Showtime series ''Dexter,'' and David Fisher in the HBO drama series '' Six Feet Under.'' Thes ...
which aired in the 2019
Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the annual final playoff game of the National Football League (NFL) to determine the league champion. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the game ...
entitled ''Skittles Commercial: The Broadway Musical'' to promote a brand of candy; ''
Forbes
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...
'' described it as the "best Super Bowl ad of the year".
When developing a new project, Benson likes to collaborate intensively in the early stages of development with theatrical designers.
With actors, she is interested in character and person co-existing in performance rather than character being used exclusively as a mask.
Once in rehearsal she stages "really really fast" so she can start "seeing scenes on their feet".
During the worldwide
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
, when the theatre world was particularly hard hit, Benson and the other directors of
Soho Rep
The Soho Repertory Theatre, known as Soho Rep,The official website'now use "Soho", with a lowercase h, as do most articles from th''New York Times''/ref> is an American Off-Broadway theater company based in New York City which is notable for prod ...
, Cynthia Flowers and Meropi Peponides, noticed that many creative people were abandoning the city. They embarked on a plan in September 2020 to put artists on salary.
Benson has also worked with the
O'Neill Playwrights Conference, the
New York Stage and Film
New York Stage and Film is an art and film institution founded in 1985 by Mark Linn-Baker, Max Mayer and Leslie Urdang in order to provide artists with a rigorous and nurturing environment to invigorate the artistic process; to promote collabora ...
and the
New Dramatists
New Dramatists is an organization of playwrights founded in 1949 and located at 424 West 44th Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenues in the Hell's Kitchen (Clinton) neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City.
The members of New Dramatists parti ...
.
She has mentored students in the theatre programs at
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, the ...
and
Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
.
She lives in Brooklyn and is a member of the board of trustees of the
Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus.
Being New York City's first publ ...
Foundation.
Awards
Benson's theatrical work has earned her high plaudits from the community.
For her 2008 rendition of
Sarah Kane
Sarah Kane (3 February 1971 – 20 February 1999) was an English playwright, screenwriter and theatre director. She is known for her plays that deal with themes of redemptive love, sexual desire, pain, torture—both physical and psychologicalâ ...
's play ''Blasted'', a piece "famous for its shock value"
and which played an extended acclaimed run, Benson won an Obie award and received a Drama Desk nomination.
Her production of ''An Octoroon'' won an
Obie Award
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards originally given by ''The Village Voice'' newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City. In September 2014, the awards were jointly presented and administered with the A ...
for Best New American Play in 2014.
Her 2019 production of ''Fairview'' received numerous accolades: it won a
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
for best play and Benson was nominated for a
Drama Desk Award
The Drama Desk Award is an annual prize recognizing excellence in New York theatre. First bestowed in 1955 as the Vernon Rice Award, the prize initially honored Off-Broadway productions, as well as Off-off-Broadway, and those in the vicinity. Fo ...
for her direction.
The Vilcek Foundation described her trademarks as "invention and persistence".
Beginnings
Benson grew up in rural England and her father was an engineer who built ship's wheels.
She had planned on an acting career but eventually moved into directing.
She won a
Fulbright Scholarship
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...
to study in America.
She emigrated to the United States and got her master's degree in fine arts in 2004 from the highly rated
Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus.
Being New York City's first publ ...
graduate theatre program. She began an internship at
Soho Rep
The Soho Repertory Theatre, known as Soho Rep,The official website'now use "Soho", with a lowercase h, as do most articles from th''New York Times''/ref> is an American Off-Broadway theater company based in New York City which is notable for prod ...
and soon ran the company's Writer/Director Lab; in 2005 she curated the Prelude Festival.
She was appointed as Artistic Director of Soho Rep in 2007.
Reviews
''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' drama critic
Ben Brantley
Benjamin D. Brantley (born October 26, 1954) is an American theater critic, journalist, editor, publisher and writer. He served as the chief theater critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1996 to 2017, and as co-chief theater critic from 2017 to ...
described Benson's ''Fairview'' as being "directed with disarming smoothness and military precision" and noted Benson's "drama of disruption".
He praised her direction of ''In the Blood'', writing that it was directed with "a dangerously relaxing sense of humor".
He described her direction of ''Octoroon'' as having "great cunning"
and her direction of ''Blasted'' as being "impeccably staged".
''
Gothamist
Gothamist LLC is the operator, or in some cases franchisor, of eight city-centric websites that focused on news, events, food, culture, and other local coverage. It was founded in 2003 by Jake Dobkin and Jen Chung. In March 2017, Joe Ricketts, ...
'' critic John Del Signore agreed with that assessment, and wrote that her "flawless production succeed(ed) in rendering's Kane's bitter world view with stunning clarity and courage".
Her production of ''Fairview'' was described by another critic as a "hard-hitting drama that examines race in a highly conceptual, layered structure".
''
New Yorker
New Yorker or ''variant'' primarily refers to:
* A resident of the State of New York
** Demographics of New York (state)
* A resident of New York City
** List of people from New York City
* ''The New Yorker'', a magazine founded in 1925
* ''The New ...
'' critic
Hilton Als
Hilton Als (born 1960) is an American writer and theater critic. He is a teaching professor at the University of California, Berkeley, an associate professor of writing at Columbia University and a staff writer and theater critic for ''The New Yor ...
wrote:
Dramatic productions
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Benson, Sarah
Living people
People from Brooklyn
British theatre directors
Women theatre directors
British artistic directors
Obie Award recipients
Drama Desk Award winners
Pulitzer Prize for Drama winners
Brooklyn College alumni
Alumni of King's College London
Year of birth missing (living people)
Fulbright alumni