Press
Benjamin nominated for a 2023 Dora Mavor Moore Award for RETOLD!
"The 43rd Annual Dora Mavor Moore Awards ceremony and award presentation hosted by Craig Lauzon with musical guests the Jason Wilson Quartet will take place on Tuesday, June 27th at the TELUS Centre for Performance and Learning, Koerner Hall.
"RETOLD, The Musical Stage Company, Toronto Public Library, and Yonge Street Theatricals, taps 5 nominations for Outstanding Performance in a Featured Role to each Starr Domingue and Tracy Michailidis, Outstanding New Musical to Ben Elliott, Fatuma Adar, Suzy Wilde, Rose Napoli, Adam Sakiyama and Kat Sandler, Outstanding Musical Direction to Benjamin Kersey, and Outstanding Direction to Kaylee Harwood."
-BroadwayWorld Toronto
For Take The Moment:
"There’s something old school about Cynthia Dale’s Sondheim-accompanied autobiographical solo show Take the Moment. Beyond playing at the Winter Garden, an old vaudeville house, it features two tuxedo wearing pianists (David Terriault and Benjamin Kersey) at grand pianos. And while they don’t play the jazz standards “standard” to cabaret repertoire, they play two-piano arrangements of Stephen Sondheim songs: standards for the 21st century... Terriault and Kersey walk in perfect sync with Dale; the three seem to move as one, expressively changing tempos as the story demands."
-Lights Up Toronto
"Ably assisted by two pianists (David Terriault and Benjamin Kersey), a glittery black dress, and a blank stage, Dale takes us from the half-remembered scandals of her ancestors to a loving but turbulent stage family home. "
-Ilana Lucas, for BroadwayWorld
"David Terriault (Music Supervisor & Arranger) and Benjamin Kersey (Associate Music Director) sit in front of two grand pianos up centre stage. They are dressed in stylish black tuxedos. I love just hearing pianos used to accompany artists and I must credit Messrs. Terriault and Kersey for this choice."
-Our Theatre Voice
"Accompanied on the piano by David Terriault and Benjamin Kersey (who also provide music supervision and arrangement), the songs feel like an extension of her rather than stylized covers. Some songs have been blended together in surprising ways, a musical analogue of her drifting remembrances."
-Istvan Dugalin, Theatre Reviewer
For The Last Five Years:
"Visual thrills and confusions aside, this production sounds completely professional — MD Benjamin Kersey... and the cast navigate the difficult score with impressive ease."
-Lights Up Toronto
"But the orchestra: oh, that orchestra. Pianist and music director Benjamin Kersey has wrangled Brown’s extremely complicated score into submission — no small feat. The intricate piano line is rounded out by guitar from Erik Patterson and violin from Jeimmi Carrasco, and even in that reverberating, concrete-walled studio, the band sounds fantastic. Together on opening night, they handled dropped lyrics and missed entrances well — musically, this treatment of The Last Five Years is superb... Olive Branch’s Last Five Years is a solid production of a troubled script — and musically, it’s as good as Brown’s work gets."
-Aisling Murphy, for Intermission Magazine
"The 43rd Annual Dora Mavor Moore Awards ceremony and award presentation hosted by Craig Lauzon with musical guests the Jason Wilson Quartet will take place on Tuesday, June 27th at the TELUS Centre for Performance and Learning, Koerner Hall.
"RETOLD, The Musical Stage Company, Toronto Public Library, and Yonge Street Theatricals, taps 5 nominations for Outstanding Performance in a Featured Role to each Starr Domingue and Tracy Michailidis, Outstanding New Musical to Ben Elliott, Fatuma Adar, Suzy Wilde, Rose Napoli, Adam Sakiyama and Kat Sandler, Outstanding Musical Direction to Benjamin Kersey, and Outstanding Direction to Kaylee Harwood."
-BroadwayWorld Toronto
For Take The Moment:
"There’s something old school about Cynthia Dale’s Sondheim-accompanied autobiographical solo show Take the Moment. Beyond playing at the Winter Garden, an old vaudeville house, it features two tuxedo wearing pianists (David Terriault and Benjamin Kersey) at grand pianos. And while they don’t play the jazz standards “standard” to cabaret repertoire, they play two-piano arrangements of Stephen Sondheim songs: standards for the 21st century... Terriault and Kersey walk in perfect sync with Dale; the three seem to move as one, expressively changing tempos as the story demands."
-Lights Up Toronto
"Ably assisted by two pianists (David Terriault and Benjamin Kersey), a glittery black dress, and a blank stage, Dale takes us from the half-remembered scandals of her ancestors to a loving but turbulent stage family home. "
-Ilana Lucas, for BroadwayWorld
"David Terriault (Music Supervisor & Arranger) and Benjamin Kersey (Associate Music Director) sit in front of two grand pianos up centre stage. They are dressed in stylish black tuxedos. I love just hearing pianos used to accompany artists and I must credit Messrs. Terriault and Kersey for this choice."
-Our Theatre Voice
"Accompanied on the piano by David Terriault and Benjamin Kersey (who also provide music supervision and arrangement), the songs feel like an extension of her rather than stylized covers. Some songs have been blended together in surprising ways, a musical analogue of her drifting remembrances."
-Istvan Dugalin, Theatre Reviewer
For The Last Five Years:
"Visual thrills and confusions aside, this production sounds completely professional — MD Benjamin Kersey... and the cast navigate the difficult score with impressive ease."
-Lights Up Toronto
"But the orchestra: oh, that orchestra. Pianist and music director Benjamin Kersey has wrangled Brown’s extremely complicated score into submission — no small feat. The intricate piano line is rounded out by guitar from Erik Patterson and violin from Jeimmi Carrasco, and even in that reverberating, concrete-walled studio, the band sounds fantastic. Together on opening night, they handled dropped lyrics and missed entrances well — musically, this treatment of The Last Five Years is superb... Olive Branch’s Last Five Years is a solid production of a troubled script — and musically, it’s as good as Brown’s work gets."
-Aisling Murphy, for Intermission Magazine