Becca Ballenger - News

MARBLE-EYED TANNER directed by Harry Lennix

8/29/2019

I had a great time playing Ellen, a young, troubled mother, in the short film MARBLE-EYED TANNER. It was a particular joy to have the opportunity to work with our director, the fabulously talented and kind Harry Lennix. Looking forward to seeing where this little film goes next! Thanks to John Ort for bringing me in for this project.

Feature Film Debut - FRIDAY AFTERNOON

7/11/2019

I'm playing the supporting role of Ana in Paige Campbell's debut feature, Friday Afternoon. It's screening this year at festivals worldwide.

The day that Gus goes in for her medical abortion, an unexpected complication leaves her with four hours to kill in the East Village before she can complete the procedure. She is forced to confront the passivity with which she has lived her life, and as the result of her decision to end the pregnancy, she finds herself reborn through the deaths of her relationships.

The Sean O'Casey Season at IRISH REP

3/4/2019

I was thrilled to join Irish Rep for TWO staged readings of O'Casey plays this spring.

First up was PURPLE DUST, the first of O'Casey's comic pastorals, written in 1940. I played Avril, a flirty little Irish songbird who ultimately chooses the future over the fast-dispersing purple dust of the past.

Next was a somewhat darker ditty: the controversial THE BISHOP'S BONFIRE, one of O'Casey's last plays, written in 1955. In this one, I played Foorawn, who is struggling to reconcile her broken romance with the town baddie with her new calling as a nun. It doesn't end well, to say the least.

Extra special thanks to director Nicola Murphy for bringing me on board!

Workshop of DOWN SOUTH by Edward Precht

12/14/2018

I had the enormous pleasure to spend a week digging into Edward Precht's moving new play, Down South, culminating in a reading at the Drama Bookshop.

Shady Mae Beauford is a single mother raising her adult son with Down Syndrome in coastal Carolina. As America's Bicentennial approaches, a young couple with a radically-different parenting style moves in next door, and this tenuous mother-son bond begins to unravel as Shady Mae is forced to confront how much independence to give her only child. Meanwhile, a nest of loggerhead turtles hatch on the beach and Hub wonders: will they find their way?

Featuring: Wendy Rich Stetson as Shady Mae and Eddie Barbanell as Hub, with Becca Ballenger, David Jackson and Joshua Turchin.

Workshop Assistant: Marina Montesanti.
Design Collaborators: Emmie Finkel and Megan Lang.

PAPERMAKER at Shadowland Stages

10/21/2018

Another openin', another show in Ellenville!

We took a time machine back to Maine in the 1980s in novelist Monica Woods' first play Papermaker. It was a joy to play with this stunning cast, helmed by Stephanie Zimbalist ("Remington Steele"), featuring Steve Brady, Molly Parker Myers, John Pietrowski, and Ed Rosini, under the direction of Brendan Burke.

As Emily, Becca Ballenger lets her character unfold in a series of crises that leads her to important decisions in the direction of her own life.
- Times Herald Record

Emily (Becca Ballenger) is torn between her entitled background and the lives of the "flesh and blood" workers. Ballenger is defiantly determined as her character yearns for the closeness of the families in the mill town. - Aisle Seat

Below, the cast with Monica Wood (far right) and director Brendan Burke (far left).

THE MYSTERY OF LOVE AND SEX at Shadowland Stages

9/26/2018

I'm thrilled to bring the complicated, brave, and honest Charlotte to life this September in THE MYSTERY OF LOVE AND SEX by Bathsheba Doran at Shadowland Stages.

The remarkable cast includes Jovan Davis, Kathy McCafferty, and Sean Marrinan, directed by the wonderful Melisa Annis.

Director Melisa Annis has cast the show beautifully, navigating able actors through waves of humor and pathos… We see Charlotte and Jonny physically mature; a tribute to two fine actors. Ballenger brinks perkiness, passion, and fierce fervor to her role… [Kathy] McCafferty and Ballenger as mother and daughter are spot-on and share some stunning scene work.
- Aisle Seat by Lori Schneider

Steel Magnolias at Geva Theatre Center

4/12/2018

"It's a little poofier than I would normally do, but I'm nervous."

I'm thrilled to head to Geva Theatre this spring to play Annelle Dupuy-Desoto (for a second time!) with an all-star cast of women.

Join us May 8 - June 3 in Rochester!

Find more info and tickets here.

"[Ballenger] blossoms from a “lost pup”... into a woman who is often a source of humor."
- Beyond the Nest

"Ballenger as Annelle... grabs hearts with her sincerity and religious fervor."
- Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

WE WILL NOT BE SILENT at New Jersey Rep

1/17/2018

I was honored to play Sophie Scholl in NJ Rep's reading of David Meyers' WE WILL NOT BE SILENT
on Monday, Jan. 15.

I was thrilled to perform alongside powerhouse Ezra Barnes as Kurt Grunwald under the direction of Zoya Katchodourian. The reading was an enormous success-- in fact, it was so oversold that audience members were sitting in the aisles and even seated behind us onstage.

We Will Not Be Silent‎ tells the true story of The White Rose and Sophie Scholl, a German college student who led the only act of public resistance to the Nazis during the Second World War. The play is not about the Holocaust, but examines the role that ordinary Germans played in the rise of Hitler. At a time when fascism is resurgent in Europe and across the world, We Will Not Be Silent‎ examines the moral strength and clarity that led a group of German students to risk their lives for a righteous, but hopeless, cause.

PUSSY SLUDGE wins the American Playwriting Foundation's Relentless Award!

12/28/2017

I'm utterly thrilled to share that Pussy Sludge, the play I helped develop with Less Than Rent and playwright Gracie Gardner and performed at HERE in February 2017, has won the 2018 Relentless Award presented by the American Playwriting Foundation.

Previous winners include Is God Is by Aleshea Harris (Soho Rep 2018) and The Wolves by Sarah Delappe (LCT 2017)

For the prize, established in honor of the actor Philip Seymour Hoffman after his death in 2014, Ms. Gardner will receive $45,000, and her play will be produced in a reading series across the United States and in Britain. “You read so many plays that are versions of things you’ve read before. This play is unique and fearless. And the undeniability of that struck all the judges,” Mr. Katz said. The prize seeks to promote new American plays, and Pussy Sludge was chosen from over 1,000 submissions and judged blindly by a group of playwrights and theater professionals. According to the foundation’s announcement, the piece is “a tender exploration of questioning authority, suspending shame through intimacy, and very bad advice.”
- New York Times

Appearing on VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED on Discovery ID

11/8/2017

Village of the Damned
a miniseries on
Investigation Discovery

In this special five-part miniseries, I appear as Amber Starr, a Dryden High School cheerleader who finds herself caught in a toxic and abusive relationship that goes from bad to much worse.

Amber's story will appear on two episodes of the series:
"Dryden's Dark Soul" on Tuesday, December 12 at 10/9c
"The Final Fall, Part 1" on Tuesday, December 19 at 10/9c

Twenty years ago, as gossip swirled that a so-called "curse" loomed over Dryden, residents focused on healing through heartbreak while law enforcement worked tirelessly to pursue justice. In a town of 15,000 people where everybody knows each other, residents were left in fear and wondering "who could be next?"

Learn more about the story and the episodes here.

NY Times on A Midsummer Night's Dream:

"Warm-blooded, frolicsome and splendidly cast, this production at the 47th Street Theater leads with its heart. Nimbly played, the lively young lovers seem as if they could live down the Street...They swoon, and we feel their rapture. They torment one another, and we pity their pain. When something is funny, which is often, the audience bubbles with belly laughter. The quality of mirth here is not strained, not even close, and thank goodness for that."

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