About
Benjamin (St. Paul/Minneapolis) is a multi-disciplinary circus artist focused on live performance’s ability to bring people together and to create memories.He combines his juggler, clown, mime, and musician on-stage into works audiences connect with on an emotional level. He collaborates regularly with Thom Wall.
In the classroom, he facilitates learning not by focusing on a product but by inspiring students with a curious energy. He believes this will result in creating more curious humans. He is a COMPAS Teaching Artist.
Administratively, Benjamin listens and cultivates relationships within Non-Profit Arts Organizations and their communities. He currently works as the Activate Rural Program Coordinator with the Department of Public Transformation.
As a director and deviser, he collaborates to uncover the common thread of a project and invites everyone to bring forth their unique experiences and voices. He has had the honor to work with many orgs including The Fox and Beggar Theater, Tigerlion Arts, and One Year Lease.
He serves as the Board Chair with the International Jugglers’ Association. He is an associate editor with Modern Vaudeville Press. He is the director of the Youth Juggling Academy.
Managed professionally by Afton Benson.
PRESS KIT
Videos:
Photos:
Reviews, News, and Interviews:
- "Sharply honed and fine tuned physical comedy...an inspired piece of vaudevillian theater. As important and entertaining as the clowns on stage is musician-clown Benjamin Domask-Ruh. He bangs away at a honky-tonk piano that's in deliciously ill-repair; strums a tiny banjo; supplies timed sound effects with percussion and a theremin and contributes bits of comedy himself. " -Blogcritics ★★★★
- “Benjamin Domask gets into the psychological, physical, spiritual, and ethical implications of clowning.” - The Bazzness Podcast
- “Thank you so much for your performance last night – the audience was laughing, the participatory aspects were fantastic, comedy integration was so fun, and I appreciated your organized and professional set up with the beforehand music, prompts, and how you were well rehearsed – it definitely showed and made the performance run so smoothly!” - Paige Marschall Bigler | Recreation Programming Specialist | City of Hastings, MN
Let’s Connect!
Feel free to send me a message about anything! I’m happy to discuss ideas, projects, shows, or to have a good, old-fashioned coffee get together.
Send an email to:
Benjamin@BenjaminDomaskRuh.com
For immediate inquiries, bookings, or availability please contact my personal and business manager:
AftonBenson@gmail.com
To ensure a response, you might as well email us both!
Projects
Benjamin and Thom & Thom and Benjamin The Paper Operetta Fun & Games
Hodge Podge Dead and Alive
Benjamin and Thom & Thom and Benjamin
Together, Benjamin and Thom have performed across the United States, and individually, on every habitable continent of the world.
Their work is a mixture of Vaudeville tradition, slapstick comedy, skillful musicianship, and virtuosic juggling skill. Most importantly, Benjamin and Thom are able to tailor their performances to virtually any event.
With academic backgrounds in Nonprofit Administration, Psychology, and songwriting, they specialize in adapting shows to be message-driven.
This has made them two of the most in-demand entertainers at fundraising galas in the nonprofit sector. Since 2022, they have helped raise over half a million dollars for various charities in the United States and Africa.
The Paper Operetta
On June 8 2024, an audience of three hundred sat down in the grass in the St. Croix Valley to watch a special work-in-progress presentation of the new show. Combining puppetry, traditional clown theater, and a live score influenced by everything from Medieval court music to Gilbert & Sullivan, "The Paper Operetta" explores humanity's absurd relationship to technology while asking the fundamental question: what drives us to perpetually open new doors that we know we won't be able to close?
Producer: The Fox and Beggar Theater led by Nat Allister
Director: Benjamin Domask-Ruh
Playright: The Ensemble (Devised)
Composers/Librettists: Lucy London, Lucas Warford, and Josh Conroy
Featuring
Emilia Björk-Perkins
Chase Perkins
Micael Bogar
Puppeteering by: Abby Palen
Art and Puppetry by
Abby Palen, Camellia Nieh, and Nat Allister
Fun & Games
Fun & Games is a seamless theatrical experience–including music, theatre, poetry, songs of childhood games, toys, circus acts, storytime, and audience participation pieces with a collective scream for a much needed catharsis. Stay for the after party and hands-on exploration of musical sound sculptures in a playground-like set.
While Fun & Games comes from lead creator Carolyn O’Brien’s experience with depression, it is far from depressing. Instead, it shows the ups and downs of life while cultivating a moment of collective joy and childlike wonder to help us heal during our most difficult moments.
STARRING: The Fun & Games Guild
Eliza Bangert, flutes and toy instruments
Tom Snydacker, saxophones and toy instruments
Liz Pearse, soprano voice/narration and toy instruments
Olivia Kieffer, percussion, toy instruments, and sound sculptures
Johanna Ballou, pianos, toy pianos and toy instruments
Benjamin Domask-Ruh, multi-disciplinary circus artist doing various amazing things
Carolyn O’Brien, composer, creator, storyteller, musician, and toy instrument enthusiast
HODGE PODGE
Created by Benjamin Domask-Ruh
Cast:
Benjamin Domask-Ruh, Light Bulb
Crew:
Afton Benson, Thom Wall
Benjamin uses the bits and pieces collected from his brain around the ideas of play, curiosity, and exploration to make the circus experience that is Hodge Podge. He welcomes everyone to view this as a ‘one-audience-show’ in which each performance is influenced by the energies brought into the theatre and blended together. Together through movement, juggling, and play, the audience and performer will embark on a journey to discover how one idea leads to another, and eventually, to how ideas can be gifts to pass along to others.
Show History:
Remounted in 2024 with the St. Croix Festival Theater
Remounted at the 2023 International Physical Theater Festival in Chicago
Premiered at the 2019 Minnesota Fanily Fringe Festival.
Developed during 2018 Hinge Artist Residency in Fergus Falls and 2019 New York Mills Artist Residency.
Dead and Alive
The Connelly Theater, New York City
Nov 29 - Dec 10, 2022
Dark, whimsical and inspired by death (and clowning), DEAD + ALIVE follows a devoted clown duo (performed by Helen Hayes winner Richard Saudek and Dana Dailey) as one clown mourns their partner’s death while trying to keep their soul from escaping to run amok as a dybbuk. Set to live music, Jewish burial rituals meet classic vaudevillian clown routines in this delightfully funny and deeply moving show about partnership, loss and the difficult realization that the show—just like life— must go on.
Conceived by Richard Saudek.
Cast and Crew
Cast: Richard Saudek, Pher, Dana Dailey, Benjamin Domask-Ruh
Directors: Richard Saudek & Pher
Stage Manager: Christina M. Woolard
Sound Design: Brendan Aanes
Light Design: Driscoll Otto
Costume Design: Elena Brocade