Nell Benjamin
Nell Benjamin is the playwright of The Explorers Club. She co-wrote the score to Legally Blonde: The Musical with composer Laurence O’Keefe, for which they received a Tony Award nomination and a Drama Desk nomination. Nell’s disturbingly free adaptation of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, called Pirates! (or Gilbert and Sullivan Plunder’d) ran at the Goodspeed Opera House, the Paper Mill Playhouse and the Huntington Theater and will be playing at the MUNY this July. Nell wrote lyrics for Sarah, Plain and Tall, originally developed by Theatreworks USA. Sarah played at the Lucille Lortel Theater Off-Broadway, and at Dallas Theater Center in 2009. Nell and Larry were nominated for a 2005 Drama Desk for Best Book of a Musical for Cam Jansen (also developed by Theatreworks USA) and won an L.A. Ovation Award for their first collaboration, The Mice. Her work for television includes the last and weirdest season of Unhappily Ever After, Animal Planet’s Whoa! Sunday with Mo Rocca, and the new Electric Company. Nell is also working on a musical adaptation of Because of Winn Dixie with composer Duncan Sheik. She holds an M.Phil. from University of Dublin, Trinity College and a B.A. from Harvard University. She received the 2003 Kleban Foundation Award for lyrics and a 2003 Jonathan Larson Foundation Grant.
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