Ben Levi Ross

Ross was born to a Jewish family on January 15th, 1998 and grew up in Santa Monica, California.[2][1] He attended Santa Monica High School, where he was active in his school's theater program. In 2016, he was named a Presidential Scholar of the Arts as part of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Scholars Program.[3][4] He was also a grand prize finalist for the 2016 Music Center Spotlight awards.[5][6] Following high school, he attended Carnegie Mellon University for a year and a half.[7]

At an audition for the play "The Low Road" at New York's Public Theater, Ross was noticed by Dear Evan Hansen director Michael Greif, who told Ross that he would be great as an understudy in the cast of Dear Evan Hansen. Soon after, he joined Dear Evan Hansen's cast, and made his Broadway debut as the character Jared. Ross then spent ten months understudying for the roles of Evan, Connor, and Jared.[7][8] In 2018, he left the Broadway company and joined the first national tour of the show in the titular role.[9][10] He left the production on September 15th, 2019.[11] From January 29th to February 3rd, 2020, Ross starred as Henry in the Kennedy Center's production of Next to Normal.[12]

Ross is openly gay and identifies as non-binary, using he/him/they/them pronouns.[13][14] He has been in a relationship with Taylor Trensch, another former Dear Evan Hansen actor, since December, 2017.[15]