Sunday near Central Park with Laura was how I spent one clear-skied 70-degree autumn afternoon in New York recently. As we were accosted by the falling October leaves and gently sipped our small coffees, the 22-year old Broadway newcomer had something else on her mind other than the built-up buzz surrounding her past and potential future stage successes: subletting her Upper West Side apartment. "I had three people just today not show up to look at it."
Her frustration quickly surrenders to elation, as the forthcoming vacancy stems from her imminent January journey out west to play the folorn Cinderella in the pre-Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Into the Woods. "It's one of my favorite shows. I saw it [on Broadway] when I was nine and fell in love with it. And to work with Sondheim and James Lapine and Paul Gemignani-that's the cream of the crop. I feel like I couldn't ever do better in terms of musical theatre."
But Laura Benanti has done pretty well for herself thus far. At 17, she made her Broadway debut as "the third nun from the left" in The Sound of Music, only to find herself taking over the lead role of Maria two years later, playing opposite Richard Chamberlain and following in the footsteps of Marias past. "Fortunately, I don't think I was bright enough at the time to even think of that. I was literally like, 'don't vomit'- that was my subtext. I wasn't worried until it was all done and I looked back and thought of Julie Andrews and Mary Martin."
After tackling the do-re-mi-ing of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Laura went on to sweetly scat the tunes of the likes of Duke Ellington, Johnny Mercer, Benny Goodman, and many others, bestowing the rookie her first Tony nomination. "I was hesitant to do Swing! because it was a musical revue. I honestly thought it was a real classy show, though. I thought 'Cry Me a River' (her seductive second act number with trombone player Steve Armour) was a scene. Basically, we went through it as if we were speaking, and we tried to be very confident about what the other person was saying. I think that's why I do so many readings, because I want to be able to speak. I don't want to lose my facility for text."
Of the aforementioned readings, Time and Again was one that came to fruition at Manhattan Theatre Club's City Center Stage II last season, and one that Laura has been a part of for many years. "I called it Time and Again and Again and Again and Again," she says. In the short-lived MTC musical by Jack Viertel and Walter Edgar Kennon, based on the book by Jack Finney, Laura played a young 19th century woman ("Sometimes I feel like I was born in the wrong time period) that modern-day illustrator Si Morley meets and falls in love with when he travels back in time. Workshop readings of the show had been eagerly embraced, but the show was viciously assailed when it opened in January 2001.
"I really have an affinity for that show. I was disappointed [with the immediate closing], but we knew it was coming. Some things lose thier emotional life when you put them onstage. There are some readings and workshops that I've seen that have moved me to tears, Suessical being one of them. And then you put it up on stage, and all of a sudden it loses whatever made it special."
Growing up in North Jersey, Laura had selected her career choice "from the womb, literally." She did her first musical when she was 14, and as long as her grades were up to par, she was able to do her high school musical every year and one community show a year. "I put my heart and soul and blood into doing that. It was Broadway to me. If people don't take it seriously, I was like Corky St. Claire- I was completley Waiting for Guffman. I was doing 'Stools' all the time [laughs]." She went on to perform in the non-musical Jane Eyre and Man of La Mancha at the Papermill Playhouse in New Jersey, which, she says, "was my big break. Had I not been affiliated with the Papermill, I never would have gotten any of this."
In her spare time, she teaches voice lessons and is a passionate songwriter, and would eventually like to return to college for women's studies. "I feel that 13, 14, 15 is the age when we lose [young women]. All of a sudden it's about being pretty, and seeming, rather than being. I would want to teach [about] how many anonymous poems and books and paintings were by women. And the struggle, and why it's so important that we not allow ourselves to be treated like objects.
"There's such a dangerous trend towards that right now with music. I feel like girls need to have an option. That's why I'm writing, and that's why for the first time, I'm sharing what I've written. The songwriter is dying out, but it's always a pendulum and hopefully the pendulum is swinging back to more meaningful stuff. I'd like to be a part of it being that way."
After Into the Woods, Laura says she wants to do more plays (including portraying Imogene in Cymbeline, one of her favorite plays), maybe even some film, and eventually record a CD of her own music. "I'd like to seperate my acting and singing a little bit... but I'll never leave musical theatre."
But this self-effacing, versatile performer is now getting ready to enter a two-month spell at the Ahmanson in Los Angeles before Into The Woods' giant journey back to Broadway, and the expectations that will inevitably follow the actress who has now made a name for herself. "I try not to have too many expectations because then you're always disappointed. Like with the Tonys, it was a pleasant surprise [to be nominated] as opposed to a 'phew, thank God!'
"I do feel sometimes like any moment, everyone's going to go, 'wait a minute, she's not that good.' I feel a little bit of pressure in terms of Into The Woods. I don't want to let everybody down. All I really want to do is serve the piece. And if I work hard, and I speak the words and come from truth, than I can't let anybody down."
©2001 Show Music