Benjamin Scheuer

Benjamin Scheuer is an American songwriter, playwright, performer and recording artist, based in New York.

Career

Stage

Benjamin Scheuer is the writer and performer of The Lion,^[1] a one-man autobiographical musical. The show's first version, called The Bridge, ran in the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It premiered off-Broadway in 2014 at the Manhattan Theatre Club with the new title The Lion. It has since enjoyed critically accaimed runs off-West End in London and off-Broadway in New York. The show was directed by Sean Daniels, and is currently on tour throughout the United States.

In 2015 Scheuer and The Lion won the 2015 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo Performance.^[2] In 2015 the Huffington Post called The Lion "the best new musical this year"^[3]

Benjamin Scheuer is an alumnus of the Johnny Mercer Songwriting Workshop, and has been writer-in-residence at both the Goodspeed Theatre, the Weston Playhouse, and Williamstown Theatre Festival.

In 2015 Scheuer won a Theatre World Award for The Lion.^[4] He was also the recipient of the 2014 Off West End Award for Best Musical, the 2013 ASCAP Foundation Cole Porter Award for songwriting,^[5] and the 2013 Musical Theatre Network Award for Best Lyrics.^[6] Scheuer has also been nominated for a 2015 Lucile Lortel Award and two 2015 Outer Critics Circle Awards, as well as the 2015 Drama Desk Award for Best Lyrics.^[7]

Scheuer toured the UK with Mary Chapin Carpenter in 2014, and has performed at such venues as the Royal Albert Hall in London and New York's Lincoln Center.

Music Videos

Working with Peter Baynton of Radish Pictures, Scheuer has produced three animated music videos for the songs "Weather The Storm, “The Lion” and "Cookie-tin Banjo". Two further music videos are planned.^[8]

"The Lion" music video has featured at various international animation and children's film festivals, and has won awards at the Annecy Film Festival, The British Animation Awards, The Crystal Palace Festival, and the Encounters Film Festival.^[9]

Albums

Scheuer records and performs with his band Escapist Papers. Featuring music from the show THE LION, their second album, “The Bridge,” was released in 2014, and produced by Geoff Kraly. Scheuer and Kraly are working on an album "Songs from THE LION," to be released in spring 2016.

Books

In 2011, Scheuer -then twenty eight years old- was diagnosed and successfully treated for stage IV Hodgkins Lymphoma. Seeking to gain some control and with the ethos of creating art from all aspects of life, Scheuer and photographer Riya Lerner undertook a photographic project documenting his year of chemotherapy. Along with diary excerpts and quotes, the 27 black-and-white photographs produced have been made into a book, “Between Two Spaces,"^[10] with 50% of proceeds going to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society

In 2015 Scheuer spoke at the TEDxBroadway conference on the topic of "Making Good Things Out Of Bad Things".

References

1. "The Lion".
2. Gordon Cox. "2015 Drama Desk Awards Winners (FULL LIST): ‘Hamilton’ Takes 7 – Variety". Variety.
3. "Theater: The Lion Roars (With Pride); Tupac Doesn't Bloom on Broadway in Holler". The Huffington Post.
4. "Alex Sharp, Sydney Lucas, Ruth Wilson & More Among 2015 Theatre World Award Winners". Broadway.com.
5. "The ASCAP Foundation Cole Porter Award". www.ascap.com.
6. "Musical Theatre Network Awards revealed".
7. "Drama Desk Awards: 2015 nominations announced".
8. "Watch The New Video For Benjamin Scheuer’s “Weather the Storm”". Playbill.
9. "Award Winners 2015".
10. "between two spaces".