Danny Ashkenasi

Danny Ashkenasi is an American citizen born and raised in Berlin, Germany and currently living in New York City. He works as a composer, actor and director on both continents. Most recently he performed in “beTwixt, beTween & beTWAIN”, a Mark Twain Musical Comedy he wrote and composed, which played at The Producer’s Club May 16-June 8, 2008 as well as had a special performance at the Westport Library in CN. Other Produced musicals of his include “Wir Pfeifen auf den Gurkenkoenig” (text: Peter Lund), which had a long run in Berlin 1990 and “Hexen” (text: P. Lund), which has enjoyed dozens of productions throughout Germany since 1991, three alone in Berlin, including at the Deutsche Oper,. He is the only composer twice invited as a finalist to the Hamburg Musical festival. His recent US work includes “The Song of Job 9:11″ (Text: D. Ashkenasi), performed in concert in New York numerous times since 2002, and produced theatrically at the FringeNYC Festival in 2004; and the chamber opera “Jenseits” (Text: Helga Krauss), produced as “Beyond” at the FringeNYC Festival 2005, both directed by Mr. Ashkenasi. He also composed a musicalisation (or “musicabre”) of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”, which he performed (accompanied/surrounded by three cellos) at the Metropolitan Playhouse’s Poe festival and the 2006 FringeNYC Festival, where he won the FringeNYC award for “Outstanding Music and Lyrics”. Other musical works produced in New York include “When Thou, My Music, Music Play’st” (Text: W. Shakespeare, adapted from his Sonnets”), “Lucky Hans” (Text: Margie Duffield) and “Les Artistes” (Text: Greg Steinbruner). He has also composed several one-act musicals for the Berkshire Ensemble for Theatre Arts and the International Schools Theatre Association England Summer Program. As an actor he has worked on television (the miniseries “Rote Erde”), film (“Kraftprobe”) and much theatre regionally and Off and Off-Off Broadway, including the one-man-four-puppet holocaust drama “Uncle Arthur”, which he also toured internationally. Recently he performed in the Rabbit Hole Ensemble productions of “A Rope in the Abyss” and “Nosferatu”, which played in New York City and Cape Cod.

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