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Ben Snyder is a playwright, screenwriter, and filmmaker. His plays have been produced at Center Stage New York, The Vineyard Theater, Crossroads Theatre, The Apollo Theater, New York Stage and Film, and at HBO’s U.S. Comedy Arts Festival. Over the past decade, The Hip Hop Theater Festival has presented his plays at venues including The Bronx Museum, P.S. 122, The Harry Dejur Playhouse, The Public Theater, New York Theater Workshop, and Summer Stage. Ben’s work has been nominated for an NAACP Theatre Award. Ben’s films have screened at the LA Film Festival, Seattle Film Festival, The Cannes Film Festival, Aspen Shorts Fest, Austin Film Festival, and been featured on the PBS series On Story.

He wrote and directed the feature film, 11:55, featuring Julia Stiles, Elizabeth Rodriguez, and David Zayas. His original TV pilot The Come Up, starring Michael K. Williams (The Wire) and Andre Holland (The Knick), recently participated IFP’s Screen Forward Lab. Ben was the Story Consultant for the award winning documentary TheWolfpack. Most recently, he was hired to develop a miniseries for Channel 4 (England) and Lionsgate Entertainment, a half-hour comedy for rapper T.I., and has been commissioned to adapt the solo-shows of John Leguizamo into a feature script. He is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, a former fellow at The Juilliard School, and holds an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin. Ben is a member of Labyrinth Theater Company.

Films and Filmmakers is a program of the The Film Institute at Montclair State, an initiative of the College of the Arts. The program features weekly visits of filmmakers who come to speak about their work and profession. The series, open to both University students and the general public, welcomes audience questions while being a unique forum to hear inside stories from some of the most innovative filmmakers working in the field today.