Benjamin T. Johnson

Since about November, I’ve been part of The Second City Training Centre’s comedy writing program. As we come to the end of the program, we’re shaping scenes we’ve written in order to build toward a final show on August 19 in which actors will bring our brilliance to the stage of the Second City. 

Because so many students in my class actually lasted through the entire program (nine of us in total) we’ll each have just 7 minutes of showtime in August dedicated to our individual scenes. Accordingly, a large amount of the scenes we’ve written likely won’t see the light of day–which is a shame since I think some of them were at least mildly amusing.

Some of the other writers and I are considering how to give life to a few of our scenes in the future but in the meantime, to serve as a break from all the beer writing on here, here’s a scene I wrote in March which I think has some merit. 

Pyramid
by Ben Johnson
Draft #1
March 13, 2012

BABU m
AKIL m
GUARD m
JAFARI m

BABU and AKIL are pushing a massive rectangular block. Read the rest of this entry »

The scene embedded below was one I wrote as part of Something Clever, my graduation show for the Conservatory Program at The Second City Training Centre. This video is from the original performance of that show on February 26, 2011 at the Second City in Toronto. My scene-mate is the talented and handsome actor, Andrew Ferguson and this was shot by his equally talented and handsome girlfriend, Mandy Sellers. 

The original script for the scene follows. 

Something Clever Presents “Cops” from Mandy Sellers on Vimeo.

Lights up on FITZY, buttoning up his shirt in a locker room. CHARLIE walks in, drying his hair.

FITZY
Good shower Charlie?

CHARLIE
Great shower, Fitzy.

Read the rest of this entry »