Benjamin Roberts (Composer, Lyricist, Co-Book Writer) is an accomplished composer, orchestrator, and playwright. He composed the score for Imagine U's Tomás and the Library Lady with book-writer/lyricist José Cruz González and has developed numerous musicals for young audiences with PBS's Emmy-winning "Biscuit Brothers" at Summer Stock Austin, and with Suzan Zeder and Jenn Hartmann Luck (Gretel!; The Battlefields of Clara Barton). He was recently commissioned by The White House to compose a fanfare for the historic first meeting of Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping.

His arrangements and orchestrations have been featured on CBS, ESPN, at the Monterey Jazz Festival, the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM), and the Texas Music Educator’s Association (TMEA). He has been lauded by The Chicago Tribune for “singular orchestrations” at the acclaimed Marriott Theatre, and has provided arrangements and music prep provided for stars including Stephen Colbert, Brian d’Arcy James, Jessie Mueller, Ethan Slater, Heather Headley, Richard Kind, Harry Lennix, Lena Hall, Tony Roberts, Jennifer Holliday, Ana Gasteyer, and more. Roberts is an Austin, Texas native and a graduate of Northwestern University. He serves on active duty as a U.S. Air Force Bands’ composer-in-residence and staff arranger based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Jordan Goodsell (Director, Co-Book Writer) is a director/writer based in New York City. Credits: Off Broadway: This Purple F*cking Pot (The Tank); Concerts/Staged Readings: Keith White’s Ego Show (Green Room 42) Leana Rae Concepcion’s Love Letters (Feinstein’s/54 Below), Ferdinand (developmental staged reading, co-book writer). Jordan will be assistant directing Lonny Price in his upcoming production of Fiddler on the Roof starring Jason Alexander at the La Mirada Theatre Performing Arts in November 2024.

In addition to directing, Jordan is also an accomplished actor. Film: Roy Halee, sound engineer in A Complete Unknown (releasing Fall 2024). TV Guest/Co-Stars: Kaleidoscope (NETFLIX), Godfather of Harlem (EPIX), Blue Bloods (CBS), Angie Tribeca (TBS), Solve (Snapchat). Select Regional Theatre credits: The Wild Party (Short North Stage), Rattlesnake Kate (Denver Center Performing Arts; World Premiere), Songs For A New World (Gateway Playhouse), Frozen: Live at the Hyperion (Disney's California Adventure; Original Cast & World Premiere), Allegiance (LA Premiere starring George Takei; East West Players/JACCC), Man of La Mancha (A Noise Within), Forever Plaid (Palos Verdes Performing Arts Center). In addition, Jordan is a vocal arranger & performer with Under the Streetlamp and Shades of Bublé. BFA, Chapman University. American Theatre Wing’s SpringboardNYC alum. jordangoodsell.com

Samuel Perlman (Additional Music, Arrangements) is a New York-based composer, orchestrator, music director, keyboardist, and reed player originally from Chicago, IL. He recently graduated from Northwestern University, where he studied composition and clarinet performance. While at Northwestern, he worked for four years on the Waa-Mu Show, serving as a lead orchestrator and music director in his junior and senior years. He also music directed the Wirtz Center’s 2022 production of Something Rotten and was active as a writer, including writing music and lyrics for his new musical Abandon All Hope: A Musical Comedy and an original score for a production of Julia Izumi’s Sometimes the Rain, Sometimes the Sea.

Outside of Northwestern, Samuel’s theatre credits include Big Fish (Marriott Theatre), Happily: The Musical (Actor’s Temple), Life After (Goodman Theatre), The Devil Wears Prada (James M. Nederlander Theatre), and Paradise Square (Nederlander). He has most recently worked as the assistant music director and copyist for Chicago Shakespeare Theatre’s workshops of Sinister, and as a music director at New Canaan High School in New Canaan, CT. He also writes and arranges for a wide range of chamber ensembles, including recent collaborations with Third Coast Percussion and Natalie Joachim. His piece Divertimento and Chorale for Euphonium Quartet was the runner-up in the 2018 North Texas Euphonium Quartet Composition Competition, and received its premiere by NTEQ in October of that year.

Jacob Leaf (Producer) The great-grandson of The Story of Ferdinand author Munro Leaf, Jacob is very proud to be continuing his family's legacy by bringing Ferdinand to the stage. Leaf is currently acting Media Director for Chef Rick Bayless and Frontera Grill, Topolobampo, Xoco, Bar Sótano and the Managing Producer of Candle House Collective. He has also directed the productions of CLAWS, Lennox Mutual, and ICMS for Candle House Collective and Line Produced the Windy City Playhouse productions of A Recipe for Disaster (2021) and Southern Gothic (2022). 

Based on the worldwide best-selling book by Munro Leaf, Ferdinand is a dramatic, whimsical, and touching story appealing to audiences of all ages. With a lush orchestral score, thrilling flamenco dancing, and a powerful story about being true to oneself, this is a show you surely won’t want to miss.

Bulls usually want nothing more than to be picked for the fights in Madrid, but not Ferdinand. Since his father disappeared to become a fighting bull, Ferdinand wants only to sit quietly beneath the shade of his favorite tree and smell the flowers. But once Ferdinand reaches adulthood and turns 18 (months, that is), he is forced into a life of fighting, and we follow his community cope as its strongest, gentlest souls are taken from their families and thrust into a world where brutality appears to be the only hope for survival. When Ferdinand is trapped in the ring and all hope seems lost, he discovers that sometimes the best way to move forward is to just be yourself.

It was a fateful afternoon in 1935 when Munro Leaf, on a whim, jotted down The Story of Ferdinand. It was originally written to showcase the talents of Leaf’s friend, Robert Lawson, a now-renowned illustrator, and has since been translated into over 60 languages, inspiring children and their parents wordwide. Life Magazine suggested that “three out of four grownups buy the book largely for their own pleasure and amusement.”

The peaceful bull has become a global symbol for being true-to-oneself. Shortly after the Spanish Civil War, the book was banned in Germany and Spain by Adolph Hitler and Francisco Franco. In World War II, Ferdinand the Bull was used as a call-sign for the non-combatant British Transport Auxiliary, and after Hitler’s defeat, the Allied Forces quickly published 30,000 copies of Ferdinand and gave them out to German children for free. The Story of Ferdinand has been praised by Thomas Mann, H. G. Wells, Gandhi, and Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.