Hear our full chat on my podcast “Beyond the Fame with Jason Fraley.”
In 2008, she won the Tony Award for the Broadway revival of the musical “Gypsy.”
This Saturday, Laura Benanti hosts “Broadway in Bethesda” gala at Round House Theatre.
“It’s basically standup comedy and music, so I go between telling funny true stories and anecdotes, then I sing songs from musicals, Joni Mitchell, Tori Amos, so it really spans genres,” Benanti told WTOP. “It’s certainly not stuffy. Sometimes the term ‘cabaret’ can feel antiquated, like I’m draped over a piano dressed in sequins — that’s not it at all. I want people to feel like they’re in my living room, we’re telling stories and having a good time.”
The gala is intended as an annual event to raise money for Round House Theatre, located at 4545 East-West Highway in Bethesda, Maryland. Tony winner Audra McDonald hosted in 2019 before the pandemic canceled any plans for 2020 and 2021. The gala returned in 2020 hosted by Tony winner Kelli O’Hara.
“A lot of arts centers and theaters have struggled since the pandemic,” Benanti said. “It certainly hit Broadway, but it hit our local community theaters even harder. I think that theater in our own areas is really important. Not everybody can get to Broadway, and if they can, it’s really expensive, so if you go to an event like this and you are able to pay a little bit more in order to fund everyone being able to come at some point, it’s much appreciated.”
Born in New York City in 1979, Benanti grew up in a small town in New Jersey where there wasn’t much of an arts program. Her science teacher directed the high school musicals. When she was 16, she played Dolly Levi in “Hello Dolly!,” which caught the eye of Paper Mill Playhouse, a professional equity theater that often feeds Broadway.
“I won their very first Rising Star Award,” Benanti said. “After that happened, they recommended that I audition for Liesl in a Broadway revival of ‘The Sound of Music,’ so I auditioned, and at 17 ended up getting cast as the understudy for Maria, which was the Julie Andrews role … when the actress playing Maria left, I took over, so at 18, almost 19, I was starring on Broadway, which was very unusual and I’m so grateful or it.”
In 2000, she earned her first Tony Award nomination for “Swing!,” a jukebox musical created by Paul Kelly featuring famous tunes by Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Benny Goodman from the jazz era of swing.
“I had this really amazing number with a trombone player — we did ‘Cry Me a River,'” Benanti said. “I was 19, I was the youngest adult ever nominated for a Tony Award … I thought it was a joke. My mom called me like, ‘You were nominated for a Tony Award!’ at like 8 in the morning. I was like, ‘Uh, I think you’re wrong,’ said goodbye and hung up … Then I started getting more and more calls and I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ I just couldn’t believe it.”
In 2002, she earned her second Tony nomination for Stephen Sondheim’s iconic musical “Into the Woods.”
“Fun fact: I actually played Cinderella six years earlier at The Barn Theatre in New Jersey, which is this amazing community theater, so it prepared me to audition for Stephen Sondheim,” Benanti said. “I had a leg up in that area.”
In 2008, she returned to Sondheim again with “Gypsy,” starring opposite Patti LuPone and Boyd Gaines. Not only did she earn her third Tony Award nomination, this time she actually won for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.
“That I would say is probably the highlight of my career,” Benanti said. “When they called my name, I’ve never run up to a stage faster in my entire life. My friend Kristin Chenoweth was the one who presented it to me, which meant the world to me. To look out in the audience and see Arthur Laurents … standing at 92 years old, I’ll never forget that moment. I feel like that’s one of the moments that will like flash before me as I’m peacing out.”
In 2011, she earned her fourth Tony Award nomination for “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,” a stage adaptation based on Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar’s groundbreaking 1988 film.
“I’m a big Pedro Almodóvar fan and I just loved that show so much,” Benanti said. “I had one of the greatest songs of all time that David [Yazbek] wrote. It was like a 7-minute song that was absolutely hilarious, and I got to work with Patti LuPone again, so any time I get to work with Patti is just a wonderful time.”
In 2016, she earned her fifth Tony Award nomination for “She Loves Me,” which was a remake of Ernst Lubitsch’s “The Shop Around the Corner” (1940), which was also remade by Nora Ephron as “You’ve Got Mail” (1998).
“I was pregnant with my daughter, Ella,” Benanti said. “I had hyperemesis where you basically have morning sickness all day long for the entire pregnancy. They had to hide garbage cans all over the set for me … they live-streamed it and my husband texted me, ‘Did I just watch you swallow your own vomit?’ I was like, ‘You sure did.'”
More recently, she’s expanded into movies, joining Andrew Garfield in “Tick, Tick… Boom!” and Jennifer Lawrence in “No Hard Feelings,” as well as TV series, including “Law & Order: SVU,” “The Good Wife,” “Nurse Jackie,” “Nashville,” “Gossip Girl,” “The Gilded Age” and “Life & Beth” starring Amy Schumer.
“There’s a different energy to on-camera acting,” Benanti said. “When you are on stage, you have to fill an entire theater, so the energy is going outward, but what I have learned with TV and film is you’re really drawing the audience in. The camera is like a lie detector, it can tell if you’re not completely dropped into or understanding or feeling or believing what you’re feeling. … It’s been an interesting segue into an art form that’s similar to theater.”
Find more information on “Broadway in Bethesda” here.
Hear our full chat on my podcast “Beyond the Fame with Jason Fraley.”
