July 15: Happy Birthday Laura Benanti

[TMC]

https://lebeauleblog.com/2018/07/15/...d-irene-jacob/

Laura Benanti is celebrating her 39th birthday today. Benanti grew up in New Jersey and began appearing in school and community musical theater productions as a teen. Not long after her high school graduation she auditioned for the role of Liesl in a Broadway revival of The Sound of Music; she didn’t get the part, but was cast as the understudy for Rebecca Luker in the role of Maria. She filled in when Luker took a vacation, and then took over the role permanently in early 1999. Later that year, she was part of the cast of the new musical Swing!, and received her first Tony nomination, for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.

Benanti has been a regular presence on Broadway for about 20 years now. She was nominated for Tonys as Cinderella in Into the Woods, and for the musical adaptation of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown; in 2008 Benanti won her first Tony as Louise in a revival of Gypsy. She has also starred in Broadway productions of the musicals Nine and The Wedding Singer, and in City Center Encores! productions of Wonderful Town (as Eileen) and The Most Happy Fella (as Rosabella). Benanti’s latest Tony nomination, and her first in the Best Leading Actress category, was for starring opposite Zachary Levi, as Amalia Balash in the 2016 revival of She Loves Me.


Benanti has also had a busy television career. She first appeared on the small screen in 2005, as a regular on the short-lived FX sitcom Starved. She has also been a regular on other series, mostly equally short-lived, such as NBC’s The Playboy Club and Go On; she also costarrred as the Baroness Elsa on NBC’s The Sound of Music Live!. Benanti appeared in a recurring role over three seasons of Law & Order: SVU, and more recently in the dual role of Alura Zor-El and Astra In-Ze on Supergirl (she had to leave the series in 2016 due to her other commitments). She has been seen recently impersonating Melania Trump on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and in the role of Edie Randall on TBS’s The Detour. She returned to Broadway last year in Steve Martin’s play Meteor Shower.