Ben Wilson

Ben’s first play I’ll Be Fine was produced and performed at BATS Theatre, Wellington, in 2014 when he was eighteen. The production travelled to Auckland's Basement Theatre in 2015. I’ll Be Fine was shortlisted for the 2015 Playmarket Playwrights b4 25. Ben's second play Call Me Bukowski premiered at BATS Theatre in 2015 and was shortlisted for the 2016 Playmarket Playwrights b4 25 award.

In 2016 Ben completed a Masters in Scriptwriting at the International Institute of Modern Letters with Ken Duncum. His third play Fred is Cold was produced that year at BATS Theatre and he was nominated for the Peter Harcourt Best New Playwright award at the Wellington Theatre Awards. His radio play Plain Crazy was broadcast by Radio New Zealand.

In 2017 his play Super Clean was produced at Victoria University as part of the New Zealand Fringe Festival. His play Satisfied Customers was also produced at BATS Theatre. In 2018 Ben's ensemble play Almost Sober was produced at Wellington's nightclub Club 121 for a sold-out two-week season. Post-It Notes was produced at BATS Theatre as part of the 2019 New Zealand Fringe Festival and earned Ben his third shortlisting in Playwrights b4 25. In the same year Ben was commissioned by Wellington's Long Cloud Youth Theatre company to write and co-devise his anthology play Breaks.

In 2020 Ben won Playmarket’s Playwrights b4 25 for his play Homemade Takeaways—the same play was a quarter finalist in the Screencraft International Playwriting Competition and was shortlisted for the 2021 Adam NZ Playwriting Award. Homemade Takeaways received a public reading at Circa Theatre, Wellington, as part of their 2021 Fringe Festival Season.  

In 2021 Ben received funding from the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand to turn his play Fred is Cold into a short film of the same name.