Roger Benington was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. He holds an MFA in Theatre Directing from the University of Utah and was awarded The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s Young Artist Fellowship to study directing at The Juilliard School with JoAnne Akalaitis, Michael Kahn, and Garland Wright. Benington was a recipient of the NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Directors (2003-2005).
In New York he directed Strindberg’s, The Pelican, Off-Broadway at Classic Stage Company, and created Diviners for the Lincoln Center Theatre’s Director’s Lab. In Salt Lake City, where he is the Artistic Director of Tooth & Nail Theatre, Benington’s directing credits include Ibsen’s Little Eyolf, Sedaris’s The Santaland Diaries, his own adaptation of Arabian Nights, Crave by Sarah Kane, Becky Mode’s Fully Committed, Ferdinand Bruckner’s The Pains of Youth, and two seasons of Project Fabulocity!, original plays by and about Queer youth in Salt Lake City. For Sundance Children’s Theatre, he directed productions of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, The Little Prince, and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which he was also commissioned to adapt. As director and playwright, Benington developed his adaptation of Paul Monette’s Sanctuary at the 1998 Sundance Theatre Laboratory. Original plays for children by Benington include The Dark Shadow, Ivona & the Voice Within, The Secret in the Shoebox and Timocina & the Crocodiles, which was selected by The Drama League for development in their New Directors/New Works project. Among numerous grants awarded Benington for his work in theatre are a Jim Henson Foundation grant, two Arts Grants from the Salt Lake City Arts Council, and four Individual Artist Grants from the Utah Arts Council. Regional productions include Sarah Kane’s Crave and Daniel McIvor’s Never Swim Alone at Washington Ensemble Theatre in Seattle, Doug Wright’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, I Am My Own Wife, at Madison Rep., and Caryl Churchill’s Serious Money at Bard College.