AN ABOUT PAGE
photo by Benjamin Stone.
Flash Dance Boy
As a shy little Oregon boy, living on a dead end street in the middle of the forest, you can find me flash-dancing with loose feet and limp wrists. Blame the 1980s.
Poor Man’s Justin Timberlake
signing autographs.
In High School, I’m plopped into the eye of a swooning teenage girl storm, a breakaway star of the Oregon dance team circuit. This is not a drill, it’s a dance and drill.
I have stalkers, receive anonymous gifts, and sign autographs at dance team competitions.
Not thinking at all, I go to the closest dance department I know of. Enter Seattle’s Cornish College of Art.
Disillusioned Dance Student
My arts school teaches wide-eyed dancers how to go into massive debt running their own money pit of a modern dance company. This feels lopsided (all loft no heft). Nervous about massive loans for a tiny future, I drop out.
Lost Angeleno
The cost of dance class next to the pathetic rates (if any) dancers get to perform feels pointless —Escape to LA— I spend my prime physical years blowing off dance to be a BDSM shop boy, among other things, and drown in my own debauchery. See what I learn about life through lube wrestling.
Busy (No)Body
baby’s first embarrassing reel.
In a last ditch effort to justify my student loans, I spray-and-pray audition, getting booked for modest modern dance productions, internet commercials, music videos, and musical theater productions. You haven’t heard of them.
Despite almost getting a Target commercial once a year, I’m ultimately too cute for dork roles, too goofy to play a heartthrob, and too skinny for the near-naked gigs male dancers get.
Hello body dysmorphia. Goodbye cattle call auditions.
Rebel-Clown Choreographer
Baby’s first show, Bathroom Follies, consists of 5 dance vignettes that wallow in hidden, humbling situations occurring in the restroom. Raw and ridiculous as it sounds, it set into motion a bastardized broadway experience that is my calling card. See how this classically trained dancer became the shit, literally.
As a choreographer, I continue producing wild, no-budget, hole-in-the-wall performance happenings that become city wide sensations.
leading a marketing training.
Accidental Marketing Pro
My flair for theatrics, studious nature, and desperate need for butts in my seats makes me good at promoting my shows. Culture-making companies take notice and I become a formidable marketing consultant and public speaker.
Dancer Turned Comedian
Fed up with the pretense of hot moves and high art, I divorce the dance industry and run away with comedy. Now, I advocate for sex positive puppets, trade in LGBTQIA+ conspiracy theories, act strange on camera for money, and so much more.
sizzle reel.
WHAT’S THE POINT BENSON?
Is it fame? Nope.
Is it money? Hah, no.
I have no delusions of grandeur or plans to get rich off comedy. I’m cultivating a community of people who have an adventurous sense of humor and like to share clever thoughts. Could that be you? Sign up for the email list and I’ll see you on social. Thanks!