Photos by Lisa Keating
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Ben Johnson has worked as a professional performer and teacher since 1997. Recently, he has appeared in Waiting for Godot at Marin Theater Company, The 39 Steps and The Underpants at Center REP,Scapin at A.C.T., and as an improviser with Improv Playhouse, True Fiction Magazine, Awkward Dinner Party, and BATS Improv Theatre. His other credits include The Elephant Man, Mother Courage,La Bête, The Beard of Avon and Red Noses at the Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre in Rhode Island; and A Midsummer’s Saturday Night’s Fever Dream and All’s Kool That Ends Kool at the Troubadour Theater Company in Los Angeles. He is a also circus performer who has been a featured clown in Cirque du Soleil’s world tour of Alegría, a ringmaster in Zoppe Family Circus’s Coming to America and a clown with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Johnson also created an original solo performance called Trunk Show. His film and TV credits include the children’s video project Flummox and Friends, Betrayed, Messenge, Reversal of Fortune, The Brides of Frankenstein, The 14th Floor andInhouse: Sketching Reality. Johnson has a BA in History from University of California, Los Angeles, and MA in Teaching from Brown University.
Regional Theater: Lucky in Waiting for Godot (Marin Theater Company). Scapin understudy and Gendarme in Scapin (American Conservatory Theater), Hannay in The 39 Steps, and Versati in The Underpants (Center Rep). Merrick in The Elephant Man, Swiss Cheese in Mother Courage, Rene Du Parc in La Bete, Wriothsley in The Beard of Avon, and Sonnerie in Red Noses (The Gamm Theatre). Frank in Oskar and Big Bully Battle (Theatreworks for Schools). Egeus/Lysander/Puck in A Midsummer Saturday Night’s Fever Dream, Ensemble in All’s Kool That Ends Kool (Troubadour Theater Company).
Improvisation: Improv Playhouse of San Francisco, BATS Improv, True Fiction Magazine, Awkward Dinner Party, and Improv Jones.
Circus: Featured Clown in Alegría (Cirque du Soleil – world tour). Ringmaster in The Zoppe Family Circus, Clown with The Flying Wallendas. Clown in The Greatest Show on Earth (Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus – North American tour).
Performing in Hospitals: Medical Clown Project (California Pacific Medical Center, On Lok Lifeways, Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center) and Big Apple Circus CCU (Boston Children’s Hospital, Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital, Hasbro Children’s Hospital).
Solo Performance: Trunk Show (Wheaton College and Tabor Academy).
Film/TV: Flummox and Friends (pilot), All the Others Were Practice, Betrayed, Messenge, Your Feelings, Reversal of Fortune, The Brides of Frankenstein, The 14th Floor, Inhouse: Sketching Reality.
Education: MA in Teaching, Brown University. BA in History, University of California at Los Angeles.