SOPAC Announces an Evening with Laura & Linda Benanti

Tony Award winner and five-time Tony nominee Laura Benanti shares the SOPAC stage with the vocalist who most influenced her life and future career -- her mother, Linda Benanti -- in Laura & Linda Benanti: The Story Goes On, a touching and humorous musical journey through the special relationship between a mother and daughter.

Sponsored by SOPAC supporter Patti Donovan, this one-of-a-kind performance takes place Saturday, October 12 at 8 p.m.Tickets range from $58-$78 and can be purchased at SOPACnow.org/laura-and-linda-benanti.

A hit in such prestigious venues as Feinstein's 54 Below and Wolf Trap, The Story Goes On invites audiences to an engaging celebration of family, told through timeless standards, personal favorites, and Broadway selections by Stephen Sondheim and other giants of American musical theater. "...These two glorious voiced, stunning looking sopranos hold their audience at 54 Below in the palm of their hands," writes Sandi Durell in Theater Pizzazz.

A native of Kinnelon, N.J., Laura Benanti is a highly celebrated stage and screen actress who won the Paper Mill Playhouse's Rising Star Award for her portrayal of Dolly Levi in her high school production of Hello, Dolly! She went on to take Broadway by storm, making her debut at the age of 18 as Maria in The Sound of Music, opposite Richard Chamberlain.

Laura most recently returned to Broadway as Eliza Doolittle in Lincoln Center's revival of My Fair Lady and was also seen on Broadway in Steve Martin's hit play, Meteor Shower. Other Broadway roles include Amalia Balash in She Loves Me (Tony and Drama Desk Award nominee), Gypsy Rose Lee in Gypsy opposite Patti LuPone (Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards), Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Tony nomination, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards winner), Into the Woods (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle nominations), In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play, The Wedding Singer, and Nine (starring Antonio Banderas).

Her distinguished theater performances also include Perdita in The Winter's Tale at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Anne inA Little Night Music at LA Opera, and Eileen in Wonderful Town and Rosabella in The Most Happy Fella, both for City Center Encores! Her television credits include recurring and guest appearances in Younger, The Detour, Supergirl, Law & Order: SVU,Nashville, The Good Wife, Elementary, Nurse Jackie, The Big C, NBC's The Sound of Music Live, and as First Lady Melania Trump on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Laura's debut album, In Constant Search of the Right Kind of Attention: Live at 54 Below (Broadway Records) was released in 2013.

Following a 35-year retirement from performing, Linda Wonneberger Benanti makes a welcome return to the stage, co-headlining concerts with her daughter, Laura. Growing up in McLean, Va., Linda was a self-described "huge fan of MGM musicals," which inspired her enrollment as a classical music major at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Some of her favorite roles from Off-Broadway, summer stock and regional theaters include The Girl in The Fantasticks, Guinevere in Camelot, Marian in The Music Man, Anne in A Little Night Music, Nanette in No, No, Nanette, Maria in Call Me Madam, Sarah in Guys and Dolls, and Polly in The Threepenny Opera.

Linda's last show was the 1981 Broadway revival of Brigadoon. Prior to that, she was in the national tour of The Odyssey with Yul Brynner, which arrived on Broadway as Home Sweet Homer. She transitioned out of performing in 1982 to raise daughters Laura and Marielle with her husband, Sal, and pursue a career as a voice teacher. She began teaching in Manhattan for her mentor, Keith Davis, who encouraged her to open her own studio.

At the successful Linda Benanti Voice Studio in Kinnelon, N.J., where she continues to teach with her associate instructors, Linda has coached Broadway artists and aspiring singers, among them Anne Hathaway, Gwen Verdon, Anthony Quinn, and cast members of the original Broadway production of The Tap Dance Kid.

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