Benjamin Scheuer

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

Career

Stage

Benjamin Scheuer is the writer and performer of The Lion,^[1] a one-man autobiographical musical. "The Lion" premiered off-Broadway in 2014 at the Manhattan Theatre Club, directed by Sean Daniels. It has since enjoyed critically acclaimed runs off-West End in London and again off-Broadway in New York, and around the United States, where it is currently on tour through February 2017.^[2]

In 2015 Scheuer and The Lion won the 2015 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo Performance.^[3] In 2015 the Huffington Post called The Lion "the best new musical this year"^[4] The show's first version, called The Bridge, ran in the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

In 2007 Jihad! The Musical, for which Scheuer wrote the music and lyrics, was performed at the Edinburgh Fringe, and in 2010 it transferred to Jermyn Street Theatre.^[5][6]

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.^[7] He was also the recipient of the 2014 Off West End Award for Best Musical, the 2013 ASCAP Foundation Cole Porter Award for songwriting,^[8] and the 2013 Musical Theatre Network Award for Best Lyrics.^[9] 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.^[10]

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," as well as a black-and-white stop-motion video for the song "Cure".^[11] "Cure" follows a body as it deals with cancer and chemotherapy. The video, according to the NYTimes, "depicts the chemicals striking like lightning, as if to shock the body or map it with bombed roadways, tracking a jagged terrain. The speed of the tattooing brings to mind the words “invasive” and “systemic.” We are looking at a representation of cancer treatment, but the video evokes terror at the disease’s malevolent capacity to spread quickly." ^[12]

^[13]

These four videos have featured at various international animation and children's film festivals, and have won awards at the Annecy Film Festival, The British Animation Awards, The Crystal Palace Festival, and the Encounters Film Festival.^[14]

Albums

Scheuer's debut album "Songs from THE LION" was released on June 3 2016 (ADA/Paper Music.) ^[15] Produced by Geoff Kraly, the album features Scheuer on guitar and vocals; drummer Josh Freese, drummer Josh Dion, vocalist Jean Rohe, bass player Chris Morrissey, with Kraly programming synthesers and also playing bass. The album was engineered and mixed by Pat Dillett, with additional mixing by Kevin Killen. The album's liner notes are written by Mary Chapin Carpenter.

Books

In 2011 Scheuer, who was at the time twenty-eight years old, was diagnosed with - 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,"^[16] with 50% of proceeds going to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society

On June 7 2016, Lerner and Scheuer hosted a one-day exhibition of the photographs at the Leslie Lohman Prince Street Gallery in New York City. ^[17]

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

References