Ben Steinfeld is an actor, director, and teacher based in New York City. He recently appeared Off-Broadway at The Public Theater in Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and in Fantasy Football: The Musical? at NYMF. His regional acting credits include: Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (Center Theatre Group), Misalliance (Portland Center Stage), the world premiere of Charles Strouse's You Never Know, Shakespeare's Henriad cycle, and five more (Trinity Repertory Company); Design for Living, Cabaret & Main (Williamstown Theatre Festival); Romeo and Juliet, Pirandello's Henry IV (Bread Loaf Acting Ensemble); Hot Star, Nebraska (SpeakEasy Stage Company); the title role in Richard III (TSSP); plus plays with Stamford Center fbor the Arts, Seven Angels Theatre, and others. Ben acted in the original workshops of Tony Kushner's Homebody/Kabul and Paula Vogel's The Long Christmas Ride Home, both directed by Oskar Eustis. He has performed readings and made appearances at The Public Theater, Playwrights Horizons, Cherry Lane, Joe's Pub, and New York Theatre Workshop. He has been seen on television on Law and Order: Criminal Intent.
Ben is a co-founder/artistic director of Fiasco Theater, a theater company and professional training program in New York City. For Fiasco, Ben has directed and acted in Cymbeline, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Twelfth Night, and readings of Noah Brody's The Vexed Question. The New York Times hailed Cymbeline as "lovable... spunky... effortless... dazzling... smashing" (9/24/09). His other directing credits include Sarah Ruhl's Dead Man's Cell Phone, Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods, and the new musical The Averageachievers Club, among others. Ben has worked in productions helmed by some of the leading directors in the country including: Oskar Eustis, Christopher Ashley, Gregory Boyd, Chris Coleman, Amanda Dehnert, Kevin Moriarty, Brian McEleney, Alex Timbers and Michael Baron. He has appeared in readings and workshops directed by Bartlett Sher, Gordon Edelstein, Craig Lucas, Campbell Scott, and Guy Stroman. Ben is an artistic associate with the OBIE-winning Les Freres Corbusier.
In addition to forays as a singer, composer, and musician, Ben has explored boundary- crossing projects in the music world. He has twice narrated young people's concerts for the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, and helped create an evening of Shakespeare and Ellington with the North Carolina Jazz Repertory Orchestra.
Ben works as an adjunct professor and artistic associate at NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized Study. In addition to teaching courses on acting (Shakespeare, musical theater, 20th-century scene study) and theater history, Ben is co-creator of the Gallatin Theater Workshop, director of the Masters Thesis Showcase and Graduate Works-in- Progress series, associate artistic director for the Gallatin Arts Festival, and a recipient of two Jewish Studies Grants. He has also been a guest faculty member at Middlebury College's Bread Loaf School of English, a guest instructor at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, and a teaching artist at the McCarter Theater and Acting Manitou.
A national winner of the American College Theatre Festival's Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship at the Kennedy Center, Ben is a graduate of Brown University and the Brown/Trinity Rep MFA Acting Program.