Brown | Trinity Rep M.F.A. Programs in Acting and Directing

Ben Steinfeld is an award-winning actor, director, writer, teacher, and co-artistic director of the acclaimed Fiasco Theater.  As an actor, Ben has been seen on Broadway in the Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of Cyrano de Bergerac, and as James Monroe in Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson.  His Off-Broadway acting and directing work for Fiasco includes: his Lucille Lortel nominated performance as the Baker in the acclaimed production of Into the Woods at the Roundabout (Lortel Award for Best Revival); Cymbeline at Theatre for a New Audience and the Barrow Street Theatre (Off-Broadway Alliance Award for Best Revival); Measure for Measure at the New Victory Theatre (NY Times Top Ten of 2014), The Two Gentlemen of Verona at TFANA and the Folger Theatre (Helen Hayes nomination for Best Direction), Merrily We Roll Along at the Roundabout, and Twelfth Night at CSC.  In the summer of 2016 he made his London acting and directing debut with Fiasco’s Into the Woods at the Menier Chocolate Factory, and (with co-director Noah Brody) he received the L.A. Drama Critic’s Circle award for directing the national tour of Into the Woods in the 2016-17 season.  

Regional theater work includes acting and directing at McCarter Theatre, The Old Globe, Folger Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Westport Country Playhouse, and Trinity Rep, among others.

His television and film acting work includes HBO’s Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight,  the upcoming film Callahan, “The Good Wife”, “Law & Order: Criminal Intent”, “The Deuce”, and “Power Book III: Raising Kanan.”  

Ben wrote the book for the new musical Diamond Alice (music & lyrics by Alexander Gemignani), and book, music, and lyrics for his adaptation of Ellen Bryan Obed’s children’s book Twelve Kinds of Ice, commissioned by Two River Theater.  Ben composed original songs for Fiasco’s productions Shakespeare’s Pericles and Moliere’s The Imaginary Invalid, and co-authored an essay for Living With Shakespeare (Random House).  

Since 2007, Ben has been an adjunct professor and artistic associate at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University, where he continues to teach and oversee Fiasco Theater’s residency.  He has twice received Gallatin’s Excellence in Teaching Award, recognizing his “life-changing” work with students.  Ben was a guest lecturer at Princeton University as part of the Princeton Atelier.  Ben is a professor and member of the acting ensemble at the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College, where he gave the inaugural Michael Armstrong Memorial Lecture on the Imagination.  Ben has led masterclasses at NYU, Brown, Rutgers, Duke, and many other leading universities, and has narrated/hosted several young people’s concerts with the Philadelphia Orchestra (sharing the stage with Yannick Nézet-Séguin) and the NJ Symphony Orchestra.   

Ben is a graduate of Brown University and the Brown/Trinity Rep MFA Program.