If you haven’t had the good fortune of meeting Ben Mazzotta, he has the stage presence of the affable Sean Connery and the genial wit of Italy’s Roberto Benigni. His undergraduate actor training at Yale University and his professional stage experience thereafter may also account for his self-assured confidence and agility with foreign languages. So why does an aspiring actor join the Peace Corps in Senegal and later The Fletcher School to pursue a PhD on the political economy of US foreign aid?
After numerous drama productions and a dual major in Political Science and Theater Studies from Yale University, Ben worked in several small theaters and became a seasoned director and designer. During the Southeast Theater’s auditions one year, Ben played King Lear’s "Fool" so well that he fooled a theater full of casting directors.
“I tried to play a moment where the Fool is dumbstruck by a turn of events in the King's life, as though his words were failing him,” Ben said. “In an auditorium full of casting directors, there were several audible gasps and moans of sympathy as the Fool lost his heart and his train of thought. They thought I was up on my lines.”
Nothing could have been further from the truth.
“An old director of mine always said to look for opportunities to build accidents into your scene work,” Ben added. “Not everything in life is planned. I guess I ran into the law of unintended consequences.”
And with this, he gave a bow and joined the Peace Corps in Senegal in search of the answer to a question he had long pondered: What does it really mean for cultures to be different?
Ben’s arrival in Senegal’s capital, Dakar, was delayed by the country’s presidential runoff election in April 2000. “I stayed for two years and not a day goes by now that I don’t think about to this experience,” said Ben, noting that he traveled throughout the country and made it a point to “live the other culture” in order to experience directly the different lessons each culture within Senegal had to offer.
Ben’s in-depth knowledge of Senegal’s Muslim brotherhoods is remarkable. He can speak at length about their influence on Senegalese politics and the role of Islam in these groups. Ben is conversant in Wolof—Senegal’s most widely spoken native language—and equally familiar with Senegalese fashion, as he recently demonstrated in the African Fashion Show hosted at The Fletcher School.
“I wore a shepherd’s dress with Moroccan shoes and a mbaxana, a little ski hat the shepherds wear,” said Ben, claiming every part of the dress was authentic down to the minute details.
When asked whether a native Senegalese had vouched for this, he responded: “A native Senegalese? I lived on the farms and in the villages where the shepherds graze their sheep. I know full well what a traditional dress looks like. I only call it shepherd’s dress because when I wore it in Dakar all the city folks I passed called out to me in Wolof, ‘Where are your sheep, toubab (white man)?’”
Somewhat surprisingly, this authentic shepherd also has a business card that reads: Consultant to Homeland Security for Cyber Security. When he is not in class, Ben works as a consultant for the US Cyber Consequences Unit, which provides reports to the US government on the economics of cyber security risk in the health care industry and other critical infrastructure sectors.
What other roles has Ben mastered to perfection in addition to being a Wolof speaking Senegal specialist, an experienced Shakespearean thespian and an articulate Fletcher PhD student?
Sure enough there’s more. After returning to the US, Ben worked as a teacher at Bigelow Middle School in Newton, Mass., and later enrolled in night school to study economics. At Fletcher, he has served as the first-year student representative to the Library and Information Technology Committee and as second-year representative on Student Council. What next?
Ben’s dissertation focuses on the political economy of US foreign aid since 1960. He is analyzing the preferences of the executive agencies of the US government, based on the levels of bilateral spending published in the Green Book produced annually by United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
As for future roles following Fletcher, Ben is interested in consulting for the BridgesSpan Group, Emerging Markets Group, Development Alternative Inc., or the World Bank. “The development consulting world and think tanks offer many advantages, one of them being the creative control over research,” Ben said.
In “As You Like It,” Shakespeare’s character Jacques proclaims: “All the world's a stage / And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances / And one man in his time plays many parts…” Ben Mazzotta is certain to play more than one leading role in the international scene of world affairs, and his multidisciplinary career makes The Fletcher School an ideal stage to pursue his multifaceted interests.
