Projects
The Witch Project
October 3 and 4, 2025
The Den Theatre
Chicago, IL
I’ve been building a witch.
The Witch Project explores the archetype of the witch and the intersection of faith, magic, and queerness. Through song, storytelling, and ritual, the play deconstructs our fascination with and fear of witches specifically seen through the lens of queer icons: Judy Garland and the Wicked Witch of the West. What can we learn from the witch, and from the all-American girl in the ruby slippers, in a world overcome with shadow?
An early version of The Witch Project was previously presented at The Den Theatre on February 16, 2020. The performance was supported in part by an individual artist grant from the Illinois Arts Council.
Tickets on sale soon!
Photos by Flaming City Photography from the 2020 production of The Witch Project.
Praise for The Witch Project
“The Witch Project is part cabaret, part history lesson, part performance art — and above all deeply personal and profoundly moving.”
- Greta Honold, Steppenwolf LookOut Series
“Alex Benjamin invites the audience into a dynamic and deeply personal musical, historical, and comedic revue of his idols. In his investigation of the duality of these characters — and the real life women behind them — Wanda utilizes drag, music, and storytelling to build a compelling parallel with coming of age dimensions relative to gender, gender identity, imagination, and the journey toward a sense of home in oneself. Alex reveals and demonstrates a multi-voiced, multi-dimensional self.”
- Maris O’Tierney, maeve & quinn
The Great & Terrible Dr. Faustus
February 2016
Striding Lion Performance Group
The Athenaeum Center
Chicago, IL
An interactive theatrical experience that uses a combination of athletic dance sequences and vintage jazz songs sung live to tell a uniquely American version of the Faust legend. The story casts Faust as an American vaudeville magician in the early 1900s, with audience members invited to journey alongside the characters in their quest for revenge and romance through all the rooms of the historic Chicago landmark Athenaeum Theatre.
Directed, Written, and Conceived by Alex Benjamin
Choreographed by Katherine Scott
Zach Nicol and Mary Iris Loncto
Photo by Justin Barbin Photography
Zach Nicol and Collin Quinn Rice
Photo by Justin Barbin Photography
Praise for Faustus
“Alex Benjamin's Faustus was an impressive accomplishment on a number of levels. First, the logistics of this particular immersive journey through a found space, with audience cohorts criss crossing amidst a fully integrated, consistently present multi-space sound score, was exceptionally complex. Second, the attention to rhythm and contrast--physically, aurally, spatially, dramaturgically--was impressive. It created a dynamic and ever shifting experience for audience members. And third, the work of the performers, toggling between intimate and epic, presentational and fourth wall- it was nuanced, deeply felt, clear and compelling throughout. All of this made me feel that Alex and his team were, and are, incredibly thoughtful about site, immersion and artist/audience contract as potent tools in the palette of time based theatre/performance artists. They deployed this palette confidently, and achieved considerable impact with their audiences.”
--Michael Rohd, Co-founder of Sojourn Theatre and the Center for Performance and Civic Practice
“Alex Benjamin's Faustus…was a tornado of physical narratives and dream like musical montages. It was a clever and inventive adaptation with the characters from this classic story becoming an embodiment of the seven deadly sins. I loved being an active participant as an audience member, venturing with the character we were assigned to follow through the antiquated theatre's dressing rooms, lobby, balcony, wings of the stage, and more.”
--Sarah Rose Graber, US-UK Theatre Artist
Recipient of 2013-2014 UK Fulbright on Devising Theatre
Circumnavigator Scholar on Theatre For Social Change Around the World
Zach Nicol and Darling Squire
Photo by Matthew Gregory Hollis
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