Laura & Linda Benanti: The Story Goes On
Saturday, October 12, 2019 at 8:00 PM at South Orange Performing Arts Center
Tony Award-winner and five-time Tony Award nominee Laura Benanti is a highly celebrated stage and screen actress, who returned to Broadway last year as Eliza Doolittle in Lincoln Center’s revival of My Fair Lady. Before taking on her dream role of Eliza Doolitte, she was seen onstage in Steve Martin’s hit Broadway play Meteor Shower. Other Broadway roles include Amalia Balash in She Loves Me (Tony and Drama Desk Award nominee), Gypsy Rose Lee in Gypsy opposite Patti LuPone (Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards), Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Tony nomination, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards winner), Into the Woods (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle nominations), In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play, The Wedding Singer and Nine (starring Antonio Banderas). Other distinguished theater performances include Perdita in The Winter’s Tale at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Anne in A Little Night Music at the L.A. Opera, Eileen in Wonderful Town,and Rosabella in The Most Happy Fella, both for City Center Encores! Her television credits include recurring and guest appearances 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 as First Lady Melania Trump on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
After a thirty-five-year retirement from performing, Linda Benanti returns to the stage co-headlining concerts with her daughter Laura Benanti. Linda left performing in 1982 to dedicate more time to motherhood. She and her husband Sal raised daughters Laura and Marielle to be active and engaged in the arts, sports, their schools, church and community.
After transitioning out of performing, Linda began teaching in Manhattan for her mentor Keith Davis, who encouraged her to open her own studio. There she worked with notable Broadway performers and aspiring singers, some of whom are well known today. Once they moved from the city, Linda opened her still flourishing voice studio in Kinnelon, NJ, where she continues to teach along with her associate teachers.
Linda’s last show was the 1981 revival of Brigadoon. Before that, she was in the national tour of The Odyssey with Yul Brynner, which came to Broadway as the short-lived Home Sweet Homer (you can see the poster on the wall at Joe Allen’s!). Some of her favorite Off-Broadway and regional roles include The Girl in The Fantastics, Guinevere in Camelot, Marian in The Music Man, Anne in A Little Night Music, Nanette in No, No, Nanette, Maria in Call Me Madam, Mary in The Drunkard, Ella in The Bells are Ringing, Sarah in Guys and Dolls, Polly in The Three Penny Opera, and Amy in Where’s Charley? During that period, she also did numerous television commercials and voice overs. Her new favorite role is Nana to Laura’s daughter Ella Rose!
Linda is so grateful for the joy-filled gift of performing with her daughter Laura, who is brilliantly talented and an all-around incredible human being.