"Old Country" Video - Resurrected To Promote A Fair Election!

While this song was written in 2011 for my musical AFTERLAND, the unaltered lyrics feel extremely prescient right here, right now, as we approach the end of a contentious election and the prospect of millions of votes not being counted. My friend Nic Cory had the brilliant idea to make a video of “Old Country” to promote ProtectTheResults.com, and Katie and I said HELL YES! It’s a rollicking ride of a video that I hope you enjoy, and please make sure your vote gets counted!!

FEATURING Benjamin Velez, Katie Hathaway, Maria-Christina Oliveras, Joél Perez, Emma Hathaway (Fiddle), and Antwayn Hopper (Narrator) ANIMATION by Jay Marks / EDITING by Roberto Araujo PRODUCED & DIRECTED by Nic Cory

First reading of STARBLASTERS @ Dixon Place, March 13th!

I'm incredibly excited to announce that our first ever reading of Starblasters will be Tuesday, March 13th at Dixon Place @ 7pm. 

We've got an amazing team together and after 3+ years of writing this piece, it'll be amazing to finally hear it out loud. 

Music & Lyrics by Benjamin Velez | Book by Katie Hathaway  | 

TEAM: Director Danny Goldstein | Music Director David Gardos | Produced by Aaron Sanko & Vicki Abeles

CAST: Alysha Umphress, Jeanna De Waal, Dan Domenech, Jon-Michael Reese, Lauren Villegas

CLICK HERE for tickets!

Starblasters 4X15 at the Musical Theater Factory!

Super excited to be presenting 15 minutes of Starblasters through the Musical Theater Factory's 4x15 Presentation, this coming Monday, January 22nd @ 440 Lafayette Street White Box Theater. Working with a phenomenal group of actors as well as Director Sarah Hartmann and Music Director Fernanda Douglas! 

Tickets are on sale on the MTF website!

NAMT Cabaret 2017!

I was lucky to be a part of the recent NAMT Conference (National Alliance for Musical Theater) as part of a mid-day cabaret where Katie Hathaway and I presented 4 songs from Afterland and Starblasters alongside our infinitely talented cohorts, Ben Moss and Emily Skeggs!

Video coming soon, but enjoy this adorable picture of the four of us next to our billing in the meantime!

BMI Showcase 2017: Prom Was A Promise

It was an honor to perform "Prom Was A Promise" from STARBLASTERS last night at the BMI Showcase, an event featuring fantastic work from the last five years of the workshop. Thank you to my incredible cast, including the show's Book writer Katie Hathaway, and my ferociously talented ensemble of Jenny Rose Baker, Joey Goldberg, Sam Balzac, Jenny Singer, Jonah Weinstein, and Devin Lloyd. 

Click here for more info on the event!

"Prom Was a Promise" performed at the BMI Smoker!

I was honored to have "Prom Was a Promise" featured at the latest BMI Smoker concert November 17th, 2016! Thanks to David Gardos, Emily Kaplan, Joey Goldberg, Molly Heller, and of course Katie Hathaway for bringing it to life!

Check out the video below and listen to the demo along with other songs from Starblasters here.

STAR BLASTERS follows 5 friends in their late twenties who are spending the summer working at the same local theme park where they spent their summers in high school. Neil has just returned to work at the park for the first time since leaving for college and is immediately confronted by his ten-year-old feud with his ex-concessions colleague and former best friend, Freddie. Neil and Freddie were inseparable growing up, but after Senior Prom, the two stopped speaking and haven’t spoken since. What was all the bad blood about? Listen as each shares their side of the story…
 

CenterStage Boulder performs 8 Velez/Hathaway Songs in "40 Degrees North"

This past Friday the CenterStage Theater Company in Boulder, Colorado performed 6 songs from Afterland and 2 more from other projects as part of their show 40 Degrees North: A Cabaret of New Work and Great Talent, Directed by Jeanie Balch and Music Direction by Daniel Graeber.

Katie and I couldn't make it out to Boulder for the concert, but it was truly an honor to have them performing our work, and luckily they filmed it and put them on their YouTube Channel.

Here's Chanel Karimkhani singing "Philly Philly Philadelphia" from Afterland and absolutely NAILING it. 

Emily Skeggs sings "I Can Always Feel the Rain" from Afterland

It was such an honor to have my friend Emily Skeggs perform "I Can Always Feel the Rain" from our show Afterland at the Swish Ally Fund Benefit Concert "Songs in the Key of Equality" at Le Poisson Rouge this week.

She absolutely killed it and I couldn't have been more proud to have the song performed at such a wonderfully empowering and loving event celebrating both straight and LGBT volunteers who are fighting for equality around the country.

Columbia University Songbook at 54 Below - March 10th @ 9:30PM

I'm honored to be showcasing my work alongside some of Columbia's most talented songwriting alums, including Tom Kitt, Jeanine Tesori and Peter Lerman, as well as Legends like Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein/Lorenz Hart and John Kander and Fred Ebb.

The concert is being put together by Laura Pietropinto who is celebrating the Columbia tradition of theater writing largely indebted to The Varsity Show, the longest performing arts tradition at Columbia and where most of us got our first legs.

Katie and I will be doing two songs from Afterland with the help of Donna Vivino, Emily Walton and Michael Anthony Walsh. We couldn't be more thrilled and excited!

More info on the concert here: http://54below.com/artist/columbia-university-songbook/ I'll update with videos once I have them!

MARS ONE with 4@15 at NYU Steinhardt

This past month I was lucky enough to be a part of 4@15: Four Fifteen Minute Musicals at NYU and write a short piece with Katie Hathaway about people applying to be the first humans on Mars. We met our cast in late December, then wrote the show over the two weeks of Winter holidays while I was in Miami and she was in NJ, then we had our first read-through with the cast the day I flew back! We had about 5 rehearsals spread over two weeks and then showtime.

It was such a blast to work with these talented students, and a treat to work with Director Brian Blythe and Music Director Ben Baker. Check out the video below:

MARS ONE - by Benjamin Velez and Kathryn Hathaway A private Dutch venture dubbed "Mars One" claims they can beat NASA to sending the first humans to Mars. The hitch? It's a one-way trip backed by questionable technology, and yet 200,000 people have already applied. But who are they?!

Cheese Song featured in BMI Article by the Associated Press!

A reporter from the Associated Press wrote a piece on the BMI workshop and it features a new song from Afterland that Katie and I presented. It got picked up by a bunch of sites, including the New York Times. Check it out!

Afterland to be workshopped at YIMT in June!

Afterland was selected for a workshop this summer at the Yale Institute for Music Theater! We are incredibly thrilled to have the marvelous Mark Brokaw directing and Kim Grigsby music directing. We are so looking forward to further developing the piece with them and the team at YIMT!

http://drama.yale.edu/YIMT/2014-institute

New Afterland Song, "Before the End" at 54 Below

Katie and I are honored to be presenting a new song from our original musical Afterland at 54 Below on February 17th! We'll be showcasing it as part of the latest Cutting Edge Composers concert series with the incredibly talented Van Hughes (American Idiot) performing it.

Check out the event here and check back afterwards for a video link.

UPDATE: Check out the video from the concert on youtube, not the greatest quality, but Van killed it.

Van Hughes performing "Before the End" from the new musical Afterland as part of Cutting Edge Composers V at 54 Below, February 17th 2014.