About
Tony® Award-winner and five-time Tony® Award nominee Laura Benanti is a highly celebrated stage and screen actress.
Ms. Benanti has an impressive television roster including Hulu’s LIFE & BETH, created by and starring Amy Schumer, the hit series YOUNGER, HBO Max’s GOSSIP GIRL reboot, and the upcoming second season of HBO Max’s THE GILDED AGE. Other television credits include guest starring roles on CINEMA TOAST, created by Jeff Baena and produced by the Duplass Brothers, ZIWE featuring comedian Ziwe Fumudoh, both for Showtime, as well as INSIDE AMY SCHUMER on Paramount+ (among many others. Benanti has also made widely acclaimed appearances on THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT as Melania Trump. Additionally, Benanti created and executive produced the HBO Max special HOMESCHOOL MUSICAL: CLASS OF 2020 based on her viral social media movement: #sunshinesongs.
In film, Benanti starred in Netflix’s WORTH opposite Michael Keaton, Stanley Tucci and Amy Ryan, HERE TODAY opposite Billy Crystal and Tiffany Haddish, and was featured in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s TICK,TICK…BOOM!
In the theater, Ms. Benanti took Broadway by storm at the age of 18 as Maria in THE SOUND OF MUSIC and has subsequently starred in ten more Broadway shows (musicals, straight plays, comedies and dramas) including INTO THE WOODS, NINE (opposite Antonio Banderas), GYPSY (for which she won a Tony Award), SHE LOVES ME, MY FAIR LADY, and Steve Martin’s METEOR SHOWER opposite Amy Schumer and Keegan Michael Key.
Additionally, Benanti co-authored a comedic board book for mothers entitled M is for MAMA (and also Merlot): A Modern Mom’s ABCs, co-written with Metropolitan Opera Star Kate Mangiamelli. She released a self-titled audio album for Sony Music Masterworks and tours the world performing solo concerts alongside highly celebrated musicians and orchestras.
Ms. Benanti is currently filming the Sony Pictures comedy NO HARD FEELINGS opposite Jennifer Lawrence and Matthew Broderick, as well as THE SHADE based on the award-winning short of the same name.
CONCERTS
& MASTERCLASSES
Rachel Zeidman
212-634-8115
rzeidman@gersh.com
MANAGER
Liza Zusman
212-367-8900
Stephanie Simon
310-601-2111
Dannielle Thomas
310-601-2108
dannielle@untitledent.net
Featured Quotes
“Laura Benanti delivers a powerful performance in Worth”
- Decider
“Laura Benanti is heartbreaking as a firefighter’s widow trying to deal with more painful memories than meet the eye.”
- SF Chronicle
“Laura Benanti brought a level of complexity to the Baroness that I’d never seen before, plus she rocked some seriously great outfits (pink top, red pants, anyone?). Her songs were far the best in the show...”
- Time Out New York
“Laura Benanti scored big time as the Baroness Elsa Schraeder, Maria’s rival for the Captain’s affection. The baroness is usually set up almost as a villain but Benanti was stylish, witty and sneakily funny —
- New York Post
“Stealing every scene, and earning full audience devotion, is Laura Benanti... Benanti is brilliantly funny...she stops the show cold with a telephone song (“Model Behavior”) that approaches the heights of Sondheim’s “Getting Married Today.”
- Variety
“The show-stealing performance comes from a laugh-out-loud Laura Benanti”
- New York Daily News
“Ms. Benanti...makes a bold and energetic impression as Candela, galloping away with the best-in-show ribbon.”
- The Wall Street Journal
“Laura Benanti... almost steals the show as Candela. Watching her...is one of the most uplifting bits of clowning I’ve seen-
- LA Times
"Laura Benanti confirmed she's one of our finest stage actresses with a pair of stand-out performances this year. First, she lit up Christopher Durang's Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them at the Public Theater, then she waltzed off with Sarah Ruhl's In the Next Room or the vibrator play on Broadway. A great part of her charm derives from the geeky way in which she seems unaware of her own beauty,." -
- The New York Post
“Benanti negotiates sharp shifts in mood and priority with grace, converting every hairpin turn into a comedic arabesque. She makes considered collisions of period and contemporary sensibilities, and they always pay off.”
- New York Magazine
“Laura Benanti, last seen on Broadway stripping as Gypsy Rose Lee, flashes breezy comic flair as the lone voice of reason.”
- New York Daily News
“Ms. Benanti, in the performance of her career, traces Louise’s path to becoming her mother’s daughter out of necessity. The transformation of the waifs Louise into the vulpine Gypsy Rose Lee is completely convincing. And you’re acutely aware of what’s lost and gained in the metamorphoses.”
- The New York Times
“Benanti’s ability to navigate the tomboy’s transformation into the stage-prowling stripper Gypsy Rose Lee is plenty impressive; her ability to do so while breezing through a dozen other emotional shadings - a plain girl’s heartsickness, the petulance of a star - makes it astonishing. If she isn’t the definitive Louise, I’d be awfully eager to see who is.”
- New York Magazine
“Laura Benanti and Michael Rapaport are just
right as Beth’s messed-up parents...”
- The Boston Globe
“The New York acting pool brings the gift of
Laura Benanti as Audrey’s mother, who is
going through some things,”
- Los Angeles Times
“On the other hand, I retract that complaint
when the parents in question are played by the
likes of Laura Benanti. Absolute perfection. I
mean, I’m sorry for everything Audrey’s father
has put her mom through, but we all got one
hell of a performance out of it,”
- TV Line
“Still, the acting's top notch, from Keaton to Laura Benanti (as the wife of a first responder) to Stanley Tucci (as Feinberg's biggest critic)”
- USA Today
“With Michael Keaton delivering one of his finest performances (he is also a producer on it) and a stellar cast including Stanley Tucci, Amy Ryan and an awards-worthy turn from Broadway star Laura Benanti, I found this to be an enlightening and enriching experience...”
- Deadline
“Benanti in particular is a revelation of knotted feelings and shattered life as she navigates the nightmare of losing her life partner...”
- Forbes
"The gifted musical theater actress Laura Benanti is striking as a Staten Island firefighter’s widow who fears the finality that accepting the money would suggest."
- Vanity Fair
“Benanti’s Jane comes into focus only gradually,
but she’s magnetic throughout as a woman
whose starry-eyed romanticism can be a saving
grace or a poison.”
- The Hollywood Reporter