Benny Claessens was born in 1981 in Antwerp (Belgium), is an actor and director. He studied at Studio Herman Teirlinck in Antwerp and played under the artistic direction of Luk Perceval at Toneelhuis Antwerp from 2003 to 2006. For his role in Ritter, Dene, Voss Claessens was awarded the Arlecchino as best actor of the season 2009 in Amsterdam. In addition to several works in Belgium and Berlin, Claessens was a member of the Münchner Kammerspiele ensemble under the direction of Johan Simons from 2010 to 2015. In 2013 he conceived the production Spectacular Lightshows Of Which U Don't See The Effect (Münchner Kammerspiele), in which he also took part as an actor, and in 2015 he realized Much Dance (Münchner Kammerspiele) with Jan Decorte. In the same year his performance Hello Useless for Campo and in 2016 Learning How to Walk at NTGent was produced; both productions were shown all over Europe. In 2018 Benny Claessens received the Alfred Kerr Darstellerpreis der Berliner Festspiele at the Theatertreffen for his performance in Am Königsweg by Elfriede Jelinek (directed by Falk Richter). For this he was also voted Actor of the Year by the critics' survey of the theatre journal Theater heute. In the same year he directed The Last Goodbye at HAU in Berlin. White People's Problems / The Evil Dead in the 2018/2019 season is his first production at Schauspielhaus Bochum.

Past roles: