Laura Benanti
Tony Award Winner
Tony Award-winner and five-time Tony Award nominee LAURA BENANTI is a highly celebrated stage and screen actress. A native of Kinnelon, New Jersey, she won Paper Mill Playhouse’s Rising Star Award for her portrayal of Dolly Levi in her high school production of Hello, Dolly!, and from there, went on to take Broadway by storm, making her Broadway debut at the young age of 18 as Maria in The Sound of Music, opposite Richard Chamberlain.
Her television credits include recurring "Life and Beth", with Amy Schumer, "Gossip Girl" 2021, "Would I Lie To You" game show on the CW, “Younger,” “The Detour,” Supergirl,” “Law & Order: SVU,” “Nashville,” “The Good Wife, “Elementary,” “Nurse Jackie," “The Big C,” NBC’s “The Sound of Music Live” and many more. She frequently also appeared on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” with her heralded impression of First Lady Melania Trump.
Laura also established the "Sunshine Concert Series". She was able to shine the spotlight on theater kids, whose high school musicals were cancelled due to COVID. This led to the online “Sunshine Concert Series” & HBO documentary "Homeschool Musical: Class of 2020".
Benanti recently ended her critically acclaimed run starring as Eliza Doolittle in Lincoln Center’s revival of “My Fair Lady,” and before that was seen on stage in Steve Martin's hit Broadway play, Meteor Shower, where she costarred alongside Amy Schumer and Keegan Michael Key. Other Broadway roles include Amalia Balash in She Loves Me, for which she was nominated for Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Drama League Awards. For Lincoln Center, Laura was nominated for a Tony Award and won the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards for her starring role in the Broadway production of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and also starred in their Broadway production of Sarah Ruhl's In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play. Ms. Benanti earned the 2008 Tony Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical, a Drama Desk Award, and an Outer Critics Circle Award for her revelatory portrayal of Gypsy Rose Lee in Gypsy opposite Patti LuPone. Other Broadway roles include The Wedding Singer, Nine (starring Antonio Banderas), her Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award-nominated performance of Cinderella in Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods, and her Tony nominated turn in Swing!.
Other distinguished theater performances include the Public Theater's production of Christopher Durang's Why Torture is Wrong and the People Who Love Them, Perdita in The Winter's Tale at the Williamstown Theatre Festival opposite Kate Burton, Anne in A Little Night Music at the L.A. Opera opposite Victor Garber, Eileen in Wonderful Town opposite Donna Murphy, and Rosabella in The Most Happy Fella, both for City Center Encores! Ms. Benanti has performed numerous concert engagements, both solo in her critically-lauded “Tales from Soprano Isle,’ and with her mother, in their duo show “The Story Goes On.” In September 2013, she released her debut album, "In Constant Search of the Right Kind of Attention: Live at 54 Below" on Broadway Records to rave reviews.