BIOGRAPHY

Benedick the Bastard is a drag king, comedian, and theatre artist based in Brooklyn, NY. He is the definitive Renaissance Man, dominating drag with his wit, glamour, and sheer audacity.

Like his name, Benedick’s drag is heavily influenced by Shakespeare and theatre as a whole. His visual style is heavily influenced by Elizabethan men’s fashion, harkening back to the era where men wore jewels, heels, and were inherently the more glamorous gender. His work pulls from this and other historical periods, including his own childhood nostalgia of the late 2000s and 2010s and the rise of social media. Everything is tied together by the artistic bastardization (get it?). Or, as Ben prefers to put it, “turning everything I do into the campy Broadway musical version of itself, complete with rhinestones.”

Benedick frequently performs throughout the five boroughs and beyond. He’s performed on stages such as Brooklyn’s Bushwig and 3 Dollar Bill, and at Thrustfest in Toronto, ON. He produces shows of his own, like his Drunk Drag Shakespeare series, (The) Bastardized, which has an ever-growing list of adaptations. He is also known online, where many of his acts (like playing Tommy Wiseau and every member of One Direction) have found viral success.

He received his BFA in Theatre Education and Performance from Emerson College in 2023. Outside of drag, he is a licensed K-12 Theatre educator in the states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York.