ERS will present a work-in-progress showing of Baldwin and Buckley at Cambridge as part of this year’s (virtual) PRELUDE Festival. The performance will air on Wednesday, October 21st at 8 PM ET and will continue streaming through Sunday, October 25th. Click here to learn more.
In the Hot Seat: Ben Williams
Company Member Profile
Ben Williams is a performer and sound designer who has acted in and/or designed nine ERS shows, including Arguendo, Everyone’s Fine with Virginia Woolf, and Gatz. He played William F. Buckley, Jr. in No Great Society and is reprising the role in Baldwin and Buckley at Cambridge.
First job you ever had: I was 14. My job was to monitor the board at WKRM radio in Columbia, TN, while the real employees were out covering the high school basketball games. I had no idea what I was doing. But I would answer the phones (mostly drunk rednecks calling in to check the score) and play the ads when I was supposed to. Eventually I figured out how to play my own cds. First song I played without permission: ”Freebird.”
Worst job you ever had:Groundskeeper at the Chattanooga Golf and Country Club. A local had shot a fox with a crossbow on the 18th green – I had to clean up the mess it had made in dying. I was also surrounded by good ol’ boys who thought I was weird because I had long hair. I quit by not showing up one day. At the same time, I was about to do a show in which I played a fetus, so I shaved my head. When I showed up a week later to get my last paycheck, they (not knowing about the show) all thought I’d gone insane, so I went with that narrative. My boss said, “hope everything’s ok.” I said, “me too.”
What do you love about what you do?I’m answering this question on the day the Breonna Taylor grand jury verdict was announced, during a global pandemic that has destroyed live performance, amid what my friend Jillian Walker had months ago described as the apocalypse – in the Greek sense of the word, “the unveiling.” The thing that I love about what I do is still the same thing that I loved back in February or 20 years ago, and it’s what Scott Shepherd identifies in 53rd State’s publication Occasional No. 1: the possibility of a transcendent experience.
Best thing about working with ERS:So many good people. Everyone is good people.
Town Tattle
News from Company Members and Friends
Congratulations to Annie McNamara on her Tony Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Play for her work in Slave Play by Jeremy O. Harris, which received a total of 12 nominations.
Company member Rinne’s Groff’s new play The Women’s Party tells the story of a madcap night in 1947 when two groups of women, each claiming to be the “real” National Woman’s Party, attempt to oust their rivals, physically and procedurally, from the headquarters at the Alva Belmont House in Washington, D.C. Clubbed Thumb will present a 30-minute online excerpt on October 23rd at 7:30 pm ET. For reservations, email quinn@clubbedthumb.org
Mike Iveson co-starred in Heidi Schreck’s acclaimed play What the Constitution Means to Me on and Off-Broadway and on tour. During the final week of the Broadway run, director Marielle Heller (A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Can You Ever Forgive Me?) filmed the performance, which is now streaming on Amazon Prime.
Borne Back Ceaselessly
Glimpses into ERS’s Past
Susie Sokol as Ruth Bader Ginsburg explains the origin of her lace collar, designed by Jacob Climer, in Arguendo. Justice Ginsburg came to see the show when it toured to Washington D.C. in 2014 and graciously invited the company to visit her chambers. ERS gifted Susie’s show collar to the Justice, who later wore it on the bench.
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Ben Williams is a performer and sound designer who has acted in and/or designed nine ERS shows, including Arguendo, Everyone’s Fine with Virginia Woolf, and Gatz. He played William F. Buckley, Jr. in No Great Society and is reprising the role in Baldwin and Buckley at Cambridge.
