Ben is an actor, author, and creative producer.

He is an Associate Artist with the Shakespeare North Playhouse, and a consultant producer for theatre companies around the world.

For the last ten years he has developed the “quick-raise” process - creating professional productions of Shakespeare’s plays in 2-3 days, inspired by Shakespeare’s actors’ theatrical practice, fused with modern practices.

Theatre

Founder of The Bridge Theatre Ensemble.

Consultant Creative Producer to The Show Must Go Online, nominated for The Stage’s Digital Project of the Year 2022.

Curator of the Shakespeare Ensemble, they explored collaboration at distance and interrogated the digital arts with their 2020 experimental virtual theatrical promenade, What You Will.

In their 2019 tour of Japan, they raised 3 plays in 7 days. Using modern reworking of Elizabethan rehearsal practices they reimagined the pieces with every pass, and welcomed resonances from modern Kabuki practices.

In the summer of 2018 he invited artists to North Wales to raise an adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream in five days. The Dreame Project was Free For All, used 16th century lute music, 5 metre tall Bunraku puppets, a deck of clowns, & the audience and Ensemble shared a locally-foraged organic meal at the end.

He brought together the Passion in Practice Ensemble, who were invited with his father, David Crystal, to explore original pronunciation in the newly finished Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare's Globe over 2014-2016. 

Their production of Pericles was invited to perform at Daniel Harding’s 2015 Interplay Festival in the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra’s Berwaldhallen in Stockholm, and again at the 2016 Savannah Music Festival. Pericles: Recomposed was raised in 3 days, underscored by Max Richter’s Four Seasons: Recomposed, and played live by the violinist Daniel Hope, with the Trondheim Soloists in Sweden, and L’Arte Del Monde in Savannah.

Ben played Hamlet in the first Original Pronunciation production for 400 years, and was the curator of the first CD of extracts of Shakespeare in Original Pronunciation for the British Library, and their 2016 Shakespeare Birthday celebrations. You can hear the accent here.

Writing

His first solo book, Shakespeare on Toast – Getting a Taste for the Bard (Icon 2008) was shortlisted for the 2010 Educational Writer of the Year Award. 

Springboard Shakespeare - a quartet for Arden Shakespeare / Bloomsbury - was published June 2013.

He was the co-writer of Shakespeare’s Words (Penguin 2002) and The Shakespeare Miscellany (Penguin 2005) with his father David Crystal. Their Illustrated Dictionary of Shakespeare was published April 2015 with OUP, and was shortlisted for the 2016 Educational Writer of the Year Award. 

Lockdown Shakespeare, published for Arden Shakespeare July 2022, offers the first in-depth analysis and sourcebook for 'lockdown Shakespeare'. With David Sterling Brown, Ben contributes the chapter, In the Time of Corona: Questioning What You Will, an exploration and analysis of The Shakespeare' Ensemble’s 2020 digital promenade, What You Will.

Everyday Shakespeare was published in print and audiobook by Chambers in 2023. The calendar was published by Page-a-day in 2024.

Ben’s books on Shakespeare can be found here.

Collaborations

Ben has toured the US, Canada, Europe, Asia, India, Australia and New Zealand, and has frequently collaborated with Bell Shakespeare, New Hampshire-based Seven Stages Shakespeare Company, the Prague Shakespeare Company, the British Library, the British Council, the English Speaking Union, the Prince’s Trust Institute, and the Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust.

He is an associate member of the Shakespeare Theatre Association, on the education sub-committee for the Shakespeare North Playhouse, and is a Patron of Shakespeare Week.

He is the creative producer for the De-centered Shakespeare Network, in collaboration with the University of West Scotland.

He has created new Shakespeare pieces with the musicians Sam Amidon, the Askew Sisters, the spoken word poet Lionheart, the theatre companies Graeae, and Big House, the puppet designer Helen Foan, the lute player Solmund Nystabakk, and the actor & clown Sean Garratt.

Talks & Education

He gave the English Council Lecture at the British Council on Speaking the bright and beautiful English of Shakespeare. His TEDx talk was called Original Practices: Shakespeare's Craft.

He has given talks on the future of education at the Global Teacher’s Fair for Macmillan English, and the Keynote lecture for the National Teacher’s Conference at Bell Shakespeare, Sydney.

He has taught in schools, universities, colleges and theatre institutions around the world, and has been developing physical games for children and young people with SEND, working with Joe England.

Some of his talks can be seen here.

He tweets from @bencrystal.