Ben Bonnema

Ben Bonnema is the recipient of the Fred Ebb Award, the Jonathan Larson Grant, the ASCAP Frederick Loewe Award, and the Harold Adamson Lyric Award. The New Yorker raved about his musical THE APPLE BOYS, calling it “a bushelful of delights” and that he wrote “clever, catchy songs.” It ran at the HERE Arts Center in November 2018 (book by Jonothon Lyons) and had its regional premiere at Bucks County Playhouse in May 2025.

ONE WAY, written with Christopher Staskel, was at NAMT’s 2019 Festival of New Musicals starring Jenn Colella (Come From Away, Tony Nom.). It was also developed at the Johnny Mercer Foundation Songwriters Project, the Writers Colony at Goodspeed, the Musical Theatre Factory, and had a workshop production at Manhattan School of Music. Ben wrote book, music & lyrics to Adult Swim's PETER PANIC, a full-length musical within a mobile game starring Gideon Glick and Emily Skeggs, downloaded over two million times (developed by James Marion).

Other full-length: BOYS WHO TRICKED ME, called "heart-healing musical theatre" by Joshua Barone of the New York Times; THE LOST GIRL with Arianna Rose (Buck Hill Skytop Music Festival, Florida Festival of New Musicals). He contributed additional sound design and composition to Punchdrunk's award-winning show SLEEP NO MORE and supplied additional orchestrations for Ana Gasteyer's solo album I'm Hip.

Ben holds an M.F.A. from NYU's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. He's a proud member of ASCAP, the Dramatist Guild, and is a founding member of the Musical Theatre Factory.