By Ron Fassler . . .
It may be hard to believe, but Laura Benanti has been delighting Broadway audiences since 1998. She made her Broadway debut at age eighteen, first in the ensemble and then moving up as Maria, replacing the late Rebecca Luker in a revival of The Sound of Music. Next came the musical revue Swing (1999), Cinderella in the first Broadway revival of Into the Woods (2002), Claudia in the revival of Nine (2003), finally getting to create a role from the ground up in The Wedding Singer (2006), back to revivals and a Tony for playing Louise in Gypsy (2008), stopping the show with her solo “Model Behavior” in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (2009), and then back to a revivals again with Amalia in She Loves Me (2016) and My Fair Lady (2018), her last Broadway appearance to date, succeeding Lauren Ambrose as Eliza Doolittle. Amongst all that, she managed to squeeze in two straight plays, Sarah Ruhle’s In the Next Room (2009) and Steve Martin’s Meteor Shower (2017), leaving Benanti with a resume that would make any striving ingenue envious.
But why haven’t we seen her on a Broadway stage since 2018? Innocently asking the same question herself at her recent one-night only show at 92NY, Benanti doesn’t really have an answer. “I worked for 22 years on Broadway, working within a ten-block radius,” she mournfully intoned. Sure, she’s matured but there should be roles galore for someone with her voice, her looks, her acting skills, and her wild knack for comedy which, thankfully, due to her breathtakingly funny appearances as Melania Trump on Stephen Colbert’s Late Show, have introduced her talents nationwide. Last Thursday evening, with a wonderful band led by Todd Almond, her 90-minute show was filled with great music, great storytelling, and uproarious personal stories of her life as a daughter, mother, wife. Spending time with Benanti, the singing certainly wows, but the fact that she could work as a stand-up is an unexpected bonus. As she notes: “One person shows are the most narcissistic of art forms—or at least that’s the way I like to do it.”
For our musical pleasure, Benanti led off with a medley from My Fair Lady, a show that has always been treasured for the high quality of Alan Jay Lerner’s lyrics and his adherence (and pilfering) from its original source, George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. But with only an Eliza onstage and not a Higgins, Benanti provided a chance to fully appreciate Frederick Loewe’s music. Those soaring melodies! And having seen her Eliza at Lincoln Center, it was true happiness to once again hear her at one with the music. In addition to Almond at piano, Ann Klein (guitar), Cat Popper (bass), and Rich Mercurio (drums), lent assurance and grace throughout.
Telling stories about how, as a little girl, she would sing into a mirror to recordings by Rosemary Clooney or Chita Rivera while others her age were playing outside in the streets of her suburban New Jersey home hit home for this reviewer. Her rendering of “I Remember,” Stephen Sondheim’s exquisite ballad from the TV musical Evening Primrose (1966), was introed by Benanti telling us how she had it memorized long before she knew what it meant. What musical theatre kid can’t relate to that?
Segueing into Joni Mitchell’s “Carey,” then into “Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me” (a 1930s standard by Ted Kohler and Rube Bloom), showcased the variety of her voice and the versatile material chosen. Happily, “Vanilla Ice Cream” from She Loves Me was included, preceded by Benanti asking the audience, “Do you all know the show? Do I have to set it up?” When about 80% of the crowd shouted that it wasn’t necessary, she smiled and seemingly teared up, blurting out, “God, I love you guys.”
The search for an answer as to why she’s been relegated to concert work more than playing roles in the theatre, Benanti wrote a song with Todd Almond titled “Recovering Ingenue,” sung with a straight face while spoofing everything that comes with age. Following that, Almond entertained solo while Benanti left the stage for not so much a costume change as a wig and makeup one. Yes, she returned shortly thereafter as Melania and sang a medley of show tunes with new titles like “If You Want a Rich Man,” that included spoofs of “If My Friends Could See Me Now” (“Just kidding, I don’t have any friends”) and “Rose’s Turn” (“Sell your soul and what does it get you?), among many others. Hilarious.
To close the show, Benanti offered “Edelweiss,” which felt like a soothing balm in these troubled times, especially when she invited the audience to sing along. Her ovation upon leaving the stage was prolonged and her encore, which seemed unplanned and spontaneous, proved to be the best of the evening: a stirring rendition of “The Impossible Dream.”
Frankly, it’s impossible not to like Laura Benanti.
“An Evening with Laura Benanti” took place at the 92nd Street Y’s Kaufmann Concert Hall, January 29, 2026. For information on future planning, please visit: https://www.92ny.org.
Photos by Richard Termine.
Headline photo: Todd Almond and Laura Benanti.
