Interview: Delaney Benson of MONTY PYTHON'S SPAMALOT at The Fox Theatre

MONTY PYTHON’S SPAMALOT, the Tony Award-winning musical comedy based on the classic film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, gallops (with coconuts of course!) into Atlanta’s Fox Theatre July 21st–26th as part of the 2025/2026 Regions Bank Broadway in Atlanta season. Featuring a book and lyrics by Eric Idle and music by John Du Prez and Eric Idle, the musical first arrived on Broadway in 2005, earning fourteen Tony Award nominations and winning three, including Best Musical. Ahead of the Atlanta engagement, I caught up with Delaney Benson, a Gainesville, Georgia native, ensemble member, and understudy for The Lady of the Lake. Readers may also recognize her name as daughter of Jodi Benson, musical theatre veteran and voice of Ariel in the classic Disney film, The Little Mermaid. We had the chance to talk about growing up around music and theatre, returning home to perform on the Fox Theatre stage, life on the road, and the family legacy that helped shape her own theatrical journey.

BWW: Delaney Benson, thanks again for taking time to chat. I’m excited to hear more about you, SPAMALOT, and its Atlanta run at The Fox!

Delaney Benson: Yeah! Can’t wait.

To start, can you tell us a little about yourself and how you got into the world of theatre?

As a little girl, I was in a household full of music and theatre and movies and a lot of entertainment. That was the environment I grew up in. I was always singing, dancing around the house, and playing dress-up. When my family and I moved to Georgia when I was five, I got into dance, and I was excited to do some community theatre. I was homeschooled; my mom [Jodi Benson] homeschooled my brother and me, so we got to travel a lot and see a bunch of the concerts that she was in. It wasn’t really until middle school where I was like, “You know what? I don’t really want to dance. I don’t really like wearing tights. I don’t really like wearing buns.

I kind of want to do something different.” So, I decided to play soccer for nine years.

I was really passionate about that. I kicked the ball around with a bunch of my friends. I was like, “You know what? Let’s see what this has to offer.” I was still doing community theatre over the summers, but soccer was my main passion, and I loved what that had to offer me. When I went to high school, I realized that soccer and theatre conflicted. I was met with a huge decision because I felt like whatever I chose, I was going to try to do that as a career and profession. So, I ended up getting rid of soccer and reinvesting my time into theatre. It wasn’t until my sophomore year that I realized this was my passion. I love how it makes me feel. I love how it makes other people feel. There’s such a sense of community and companionship with people in theatre. I did six shows every year at Gainesville High School. We did four major musicals and two major plays. By the time I got to college, I had countless shows and roles on my résumé. I was able to play everything from Morticia in THE ADDAMS FAMILY to Donna in MAMMA MIA! to Serena in FAME.

So junior and senior year, I went through college auditions. I was always going to go to my community school, Brenau. I grew up going to shows there, and it was right in my backyard. I was like, “Oh my God, this is great. Everyone is so talented. Let me just go here.” I was really planning to just stay in state. It wasn’t until I went to CAP United, which is basically Unifieds in Atlanta, and CCM, the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, was there. I went to high school with a girl who went there, and she loved it. They ended up giving me a callback, and a couple weeks later I got an acceptance in my mailbox. My mom was recording my reaction, and I was like, “Oh, that’s so cool. That’s awesome.” I guess I really didn’t know how big the school was. I didn’t know how highly acclaimed it was; that it’s third in the nation for musical theatre. I didn’t really realize in that moment that this was completely changing my trajectory, boosting my confidence, and opening some doors that I never thought would be possible.

I went there for four years and did some summer stock here and there every summer. I graduated in 2023 and moved to New York. Since then, I’ve been doing regional jobs and concerts and then booked my first national tour with SPAMALOT, literally a year ago today.

Being that you’re from the area, how excited are you to perform at the Fox? Have you gotten to do that before, or is this the first time?

Yeah, this is a first. I’ve auditioned countless times for theaters in Georgia, and just the way that the cookie crumbles, it’s never gone my way. It’s kind of ironic that now I’m on the biggest stage on a national tour.  I saw my first national tour at The Fox back in 2006. It was WICKED. Seeing that huge theatre piece on that stage was remarkable. The theater alone is just beautiful, and whatever show is in it, it just makes it look even cooler. The fact that 20 years later, the first time that I’m really doing professional work in Georgia is at The Fox, is amazing. My family is super ecstatic because a lot of them haven’t been able to travel to certain shows that I’ve been a part of. A lot of my family members haven’t seen me perform since I was in high school. It’s full circle to finally be back. The fact that now I get to be on that stage and hopefully those little kids can look up and be like, “I want to do that. I want to perform there,” just like I was when I was six years old seeing WICKED for the first time. I hope it’s impactful for the people sitting in the audience.

Let’s talk about SPAMALOT. It’s a show that is familiar to a lot of our readers, but for those who might not know anything about it, how would you describe the story to them?

It’s based on the classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail film, and it’s a story that follows King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. They’re called upon by God, who is voiced by Steve Martin in our show, to go on a quest to find the Holy Grail. Along the way they meet French taunters, the Knights who say “Ni!,” a killer rabbit, people from Finland, and more. We break the fourth wall at times and do city-specific slang or infomercials or callbacks as well. We kind of keep it in today’s time, which is fun, to hear some pop culture references. SPAMALOT has been done several times, but each iteration, each revival, each national tour is different.

As they say, it is a silly place, right?

Yes, right! It’s humor. It’s got a lot of elaborate dance numbers and lots of jokes. I feel like each show for me is different, and not in a way where it’s like I never know what to expect, but I never know what to expect. I feel like the audience is in on that too, where they realize, “Oh my gosh, what’s going on?” with random twists and turns at every corner. It really keeps everyone on their toes, which is a fun place to be.

As this is your first national tour, what has that experience been like? Is it what you imagined?

I love traveling. I grew up traveling. That’s kind of a big reason why we were homeschooled, because with my parents’ work, we were on the go every week. At one point in my life, I said that the Atlanta airport was my second home. So, I feel like this is kind of second nature to me. It’s fun to travel to cities where I haven’t been in my adult life, kind of reclaiming that, figuring out what I like to do, and traveling to cities that I never thought I would go to, like St. Paul, Minnesota, or Spokane, Washington. It’s nice to knock out the cities where I wouldn’t necessarily go on vacation. So really, it has exceeded my expectations. I really love every aspect of it. That said, this is probably the hardest show I’ve ever been a part of. Normally, I’m not necessarily in the ensemble, or if I am in the ensemble, it’s more of a tap show. But this is very cardio-driven and high-intensity. I never sit down in Act One. I’m not able to have a moment to rest.

Let’s talk about that a bit more. As an ensemble member do you have a favorite role you get to play, or a favorite scene?

Yes. The female ensemble, the four of us, we get to play the Knights of “Ni!” So, we come out with platform boots, these giant furry costumes, and these large helmets with horns. I love it because no one knows it’s us under there. We literally can make whatever face, we can daydream, we can laugh along; no one really can see us. Even from the first row, we just kind of look like a furry monster. That’s kind of fun to see the audience for the first time because we can just look out and see how they’re responding. It’s fun to witness their first reaction to some of the lines. I feel like that’s a cool experience that I’ve never really had in a show. And then at the end of Act One, we all come out and we’re in France. I have my classic French bob. I have a bodysuit with hairy armpits. I lift my arms, and at one point in the song, I stun Patsy because I smell so bad, and he looks at my three inches of arm hair and falls to the ground. So that’s fun. And at the same time, I’m walking a poodle. We have a lot of liberties during it, so it’s fun to explore little beats here and there.

You understudy The Lady of the Lake. Have you gotten to go on in that track yet?

Yeah, I have. The first time I went on, I never actually had a put-in rehearsal. It was the day after Christmas. The actress who plays the role was traveling back, and traffic stopped her. So I went on the day after Christmas, for a matinee. There were only a couple hundred people there. I got the call an hour before, so I was racing to the theater and thankfully, I didn’t miss a beat. I’ve had some opportunities to go on after as well. I think I’ve gone on like seven times, which has been nice, to have a few stabs at her. That track is wildly different from my ensemble track, so it’s fun to have a different feel for the show when I step into her track.

I know my readers would be quite upset if I didn’t ask about your family connections to the world of musical theatre. As the daughter of two actors, including your mom, Jodi Benson, I assume growing up was full of song and maybe even mermaids?

Yes! All of my costumes growing up are me as Ariel, or me as Snow White, or me in Belle’s dress. We are definitely a Disney-oriented family. We grew up with a lot of Disney songs, of course. I got to do some concerts with my mother growing up, so I was always either near the stage or on the stage. One of my favorite stories is when I was four years old, at one of her concerts, she pulled me up, and asked me, “Delaney, what do you want to be when you grow up?” And I held the mic and said, “I want to be Ariel when my mommy dies.” The crowd didn’t know how to respond, whether to laugh or be like, “Is she okay?” I was like, “I know my mommy does Ariel. I want to do that.” Fast forward and I was able to do a production of THE LITTLE MERMAID as Ariel, and my mom was able to be there. So, she didn’t die, and I still got to do it. It all worked out.

I love that. And you also got to do GYPSY with her too, right?

We’ve actually done two productions of GYPSY, and, as of now, we are the only real-life mother-daughter that has played Mama Rose and Louise professionally. It’s cool, and a whole different ball game. It’s a genuine connection. We’re not acting. Obviously, she is acting, because she’s so kind in real life, and Mama Rose is a little bit of a nut. The first time she was yelling at me, I was kind of afraid. I was like, “Who is this woman?” She’s such a Disney princess, and that really is her in real life. So, it’s been fun to do concerts. We have a mother-daughter concert that we have curated and done a couple of times, in addition to GYPSY.

It’s cool for both of us to have this experience. We never really thought that this would be a thing. When we were presented with GYPSY in 2023, that jump-started a whole thing that we capitalized on, of this true mother-daughter pairing that is able to do concerts and able to do shows. It’s really been fun to have this special time. I grew up with my dad [Ray Benson] around the house, and he taught me how to tap dance because he was on Broadway in SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN. So, I’ve had full connection with both my parents and their history of theatre. But I always say to people, it was nice growing up and not having them force anything on me. I chose this because I love it, and I’m so thankful because oftentimes I feel like, with performers, their kids always do it, and they force them to do dance class and voice lessons. My parents were thrilled that I wanted to play soccer. They were like, “That’s just so cool. We don’t really know much about it, but we’re supporting you in any way.” Obviously now, with theatre, they’re able to have more of an opinion because that’s something that they are much more familiar with.

Do you have any advice for other young performers who are looking to follow in your footsteps or who have aspirations for getting into the world of theatre?

I would say, whatever is meant for you will not pass you by. I think that’s something I still tell myself because rejection is hard, right? You’re going to get 99 no’s and one yes, but that one yes is going to change your life. The number of jobs that I auditioned for before SPAMALOT was in the hundreds. I was unemployed for months just trying to get something, and if I had gotten any of those other jobs, I wouldn’t be here doing what I’m doing right now. So, I would say, don’t give up. Rejection is hard, but rejection is basically what you’re going to experience your whole life. It’s how you navigate through that. I think having other aspirations and other hobbies made life a lot easier. When I started to put my fill identity in theatre, I was always met with disappointment. But if I just think of it as, “I just love doing this, and if I get the opportunity to do a show, great. If I don’t, life goes on,” I’m able to still find other things in life that bring me joy. So yeah, I would say don’t put your whole identity in it. Keep going.

MONTY PYTHON’S SPAMALOT plays at the Fox Theatre Tuesday, July 21st through Sunday, July 26th as part of the 2025/2026 Regions Bank Broadway in Atlanta season. Tickets are available at the Fox Theatre box office at 660 Peachtree Street NE, Atlanta, Georgia 30308 and by visiting foxtheatre.org/spamalot or by calling (855)-285-8499. Group orders of 10 or more may be placed by contacting sales@foxtheatre.org. Performances are Tuesday, July 21 at 7:30 p.m.; Wednesday, July 22 at 7:30 p.m.; Thursday, July 23 at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, July 24 at 8:00 p.m.; Saturday, July 25 at 2:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.; and Sunday, July 26 at 1:00 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.

Lead and Top Photo: Delaney Benson

Mid Photo 1: (L-R) Delaney Benson, Meridien Terrell, Claire Kennard, and Lindsay Lee Alhady in the North American Tour of SPAMALOT. Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman

Mid Photo 2: The cast of the North American Tour of SPAMALOT. Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman

Mid Photo 3: Sean Bell and Ensemble in the North American Tour of SPAMALOT. Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman

Mid Photo 4: The cast of the North American Tour of SPAMALOT. Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman

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