Ben Manahem of Plainsboro is playing the leading man in “All Shook Up” with Mystic Vision Players in Linden on weekends from Friday, July 18, to Saturday, July 26.
The musical premiered on Broadway at the Palace Theatre in 2005. It closed after 213 performances and 33 previews. Cheyenne Jackson portrayed the role of Chad, the leading man in the show — and the role that Menahem is playing. The character is a hip swiveling guy who discovers a quiet town after he gets our of jail.
Ben Menahem was born in Queens and has lived in Plainsboro for 12 years. His mother, Susan Turney-Menahem, is a hairdresser and a teacher; his father, Eric, a CPA, died when he was seven; and his stepfather, Marc Purus, is a car dealer with Benchmark Auto Sales.
“I was always influenced by music and loved to sing — which my parents always encouraged,” he says. “I was not exposed to theater until I was older.”
His siblings, Jonathan, Carly, and Samuel, are all students at High School South. Jonathan, the only one involved in the arts, has appeared in South’s “Guys and Dolls” as Big Julie, “Damn Yankees” as the Commissioner, and “Fools.”
Menahem attended one of the proms at South wearing an outfit created from duct tape. (The News, June 12, 2009). “Kristen (Robinson) is one of my closest friends and we had a blast making those outfits. The night was fun, however the duct tape was extremely hot and I would not recommend wearing it. One good thing is that we were completely water proof and could not stain.”
He graduated from South in 2011 and attended Mercer Community College for two years. He has also been working. He sells used cars at Benchmark Auto Sales in South Amboy; runs Big Ben’s Lawn and Landscape, his own landscaping business; and works at Powerhouse Gym.
At South he was involved in choir for all four years as well as football, wrestling, stage crew, and lighting crew. He was involved with concert versions of “HMS Pinafore” and “Pirates of Penzance” with South’s choirs.
“My first time on stage was my junior year in high school,” says Menahem. “I had torn my ACL and meniscus and was unable to participate in wrestling season that year.” As an alternative he auditioned for “South Pacific,” the spring musical. He was cast as Emile de Bec.
“It was a wonderful experience. I was used to singing on stage, but acting and dancing were completely new experiences for me, and I had to put in a lot of work to get where I needed to be. I wouldn’t have been able to do it at all had it not been for my friends, Kristen Robinson and Elyse Sartor (who played Nellie).”
Though he has taken voice lessons with Paul Chapin and Nora Sirbaugh and a jazz dance class at Mercer College, he has never taken acting lessons. “I really got into theater after my appearance as the Pharaoh in Somerset Valley Playhouse’s production of ‘Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat.’”
Menahem also became active with Pirate Players at South. The students in the high school direct and act in shows that have a moral and put them up as assemblies for students in the elementary and middle schools as a way to teach a lesson, he says. One was called “Cucumber Phil,” in which he played Buster the Evil Pig and Goofy Lester, and the other was a show called “Appetites,” in which he played the role of Andy, a wrestler struggling with bulimia.
Menahem has been seen in 624 Productions’ of “Two Sides of Love” at Somerset Valley Playhouse. He has been in three productions at Kelsey Theater in the past two years. He played Link Larkin in “Hairspray” and was in the ensemble of “Aida” and “Pirates of Penzance.”
Now finished with school, Menahem says, he is auditioning more frequently.
All Shook Up, Mystic Vision Players, Linden High School, 121 West St. Georges Avenue. $15. 908-925-7619.
