WHY WRITE MUSICALS?
I love writing musicals because I love telling stories. No matter who you are or where you come from, when you step into a dark theater and the orchestra starts to play, you suspend your disbelief and give in to a world where anything is possible. Unlike film, television, and even plays, musicals are inherently further from reality, which in turn allows them to comment more freely upon it with the potential for a powerful catharsis that sneaks up on you before you know it.
My goal as a storyteller is to entertain and move audiences by telling stories with compelling characters that really speak to people. It doesn’t matter if those characters are Martians or magicians, everyone can relate to characters who are committed to pursuing their dreams, however daft and dangerous they may be.
BIO
Benjamin Velez is a composer/lyricist, a Miami native, and Columbia University graduate where he studied film and wrote the 114th Annual Varsity Show "Morningside Hates." He has been a member of the BMI workshop since 2010 and won the Jerry Harrington Award for Outstanding Creative Achievement in 2012. His original musical "Afterland" has been workshopped at the Yale Institute for Musical Theater in 2014 and had a reading at the York Theater in 2016 directed by Mark Brokaw.
His music has been featured at NYMF, Joe's Pub, Cutting Edge Composers, the Civilians, 54 Below, Compose Yourself, and the York Theater, where he had a NEO residency in ‘15 - ‘16. He was honored to be a 2017 Sundance Artist in Residence at the UCROSS Foundation, and in April 2017, he premiered a concert of his music at Ars Nova titled “Seriously Serious” featuring songs from his original musicals with Katie Hathaway (Afterland and Boomerangs). Boomerangs was presented at Dixon Place in 2018, and workshopped at Manhattan School of Music in 2020, directed by Jaki Bradley.
His musical Borderline, about Borderline Personality Disorder, written with Aryanna Garber, was the 2018 recipient of the Weston New Musical Award, was developed in the 2018-2019 Dramatist Guild Foundation Fellows program, and opened the 2019 O’Neill National Musical Theater Conference. His new musical Kiss My Aztec, written with John Leguizamo, Tony Taccone, and David Kamp, had its world premiere at Berkeley Rep in May of 2019, followed by the La Jolla Playhouse in September 2019. It had its East Coast premiere in June 2022 at Hartford Stage.
Benjamin wrote music and lyrics for a new adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest for the Public Theater’s Public Works program that premiered at Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park in August 2023.
He is currently writing an original commission for La Jolla Playhouse with playwright Harrison David Rivers and writing the score for an adaptation of Real Women Have Curves with Joy Huerta, book by Lisa Loomer, directed by Sergio Trujillo. Real Women Have Curves premiered at the American Repertory Theater (ART) in Cambridge in December 2023.
Benjamin was honored to receive the 2019 Fred Ebb Award and be a 2020 recipient of the Jonathan Larson Grant. He was the 2023 recipient of the Stephen Schwartz Award.
Born and raised in MIAMI, FL
BA in Film from COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
Member of the BMI ADVANCED MUSICAL THEATER WORKSHOP
*2012 Jerry Harrington Award Winner from the BMI Workshop
*2017 Sundance Artist in Residence @ UCROSS
*2018-2019 Dramatist Guild Foundation Fellow
*2019 Paulette Haupt Composition Prize - Eugene O’Neill Theater Conference
*2019 Fred Ebb Award Winner
*2020 Jonathan Larson Grant Recipient
*2020 Thom Thomas Award Recipient
*2023 Stephen Schwartz Award