Tony Nominee Tracie Bennett on Ignoring Judi Dench, Obsessing Over NYC and Starring in London's Mrs. Henderson Presents

Tracie Bennett was a 2012 Tony nominee for best actress in a play for End of the Rainbow, in which the pint-sized Englishwoman played Judy Garland. And now the powerhouse performer has returned to the West End to play the title role in the new musical Mrs. Henderson Presents, directed by Terry Johnson and based on the 2005 film that starred Judi Dench in Bennett’s current role of Laura Henderson. A two-time Olivier Award winner, both times for American musicals, the effervescent Bennett spoke to Broadway.com prior to the show’s opening at the Noel Coward Theatre.

Your show is set at London’s Windmill Theatre during World War II, where women famously would appear motionless—and nude. Do you expect to be getting the raincoat brigade?
Well, I can’t speak for them, but if that lot does come, they’ll get so much more. They’ll get a great story about camaraderie and strength that is written beautifully. We’re not just telling some filthy little tale!

Yes, Laura Henderson does something quite noble as a wealthy theater-owner by providing necessary diversion and distraction during the Blitz.
Yes, I think she knew she was doing good by this. In a sense, what we’re trying to do is capture the gentle innocence of a time and place that wouldn’t remain so innocent after that.

It sounds as if you very much admire this character.
I do insofar as she wanted to do something with her life because she could and she had the money to do so and to employ people and then what she actually did was marvelous. She’s a brilliant woman. You can see her formidableness.

You seem to have come home in every way.
I’m always being pulled back to England, and this really is so British; it’s based on a true story, as well, which is important to point out. But you know what? I’m always amazed to get anything, really. If you don’t do telly, people think you’ve died.

Did you watch the Stephen Frears film with Judi Dench?
I didn’t want to see it at this point; I thought it would freak me out. I love Judi Dench and see everything she does, but it’s the nature of the beast for everybody constantly to be compared, and I thought I could live without that.

I can understand that.
I never saw the Hairspray film either [Bennett won her second Olivier for that show on the West End] just because part of me is frightened to copy. And if you do that, then it becomes about playing Judi Dench playing Mrs. Henderson rather than me playing Mrs. Henderson.

You must have gone through a version of this same issue when you played Judy Garland.
To be honest, on that show as soon as the wig was off, I found that I had to be me again very quickly. I had to protect my emotions and my physicality. The show itself was about the price of fame, so it didn’t really matter if my voice cracked because Judy’s did at the time, too. The first job always is to find the character.

What sort of a sing is this show compared to playing Garland?
Some bits call for me to speak-sing in a sort of Rex Harrison way, which can be harder, but the thing with Mrs. Henderson is that I don’t want to sound fabulous because she is thinking about mortality. As I say, find the character first and then the voice comes out.

Was it hard saying goodbye to End of the Rainbow after all the plaudits it brought you here and in America?
Well, you learn in this business that you have to put things to bed. I’ve got a lot of friends from that time but at the same time, I don’t do Twitter and I don’t do social media, so I quite like to keep my head down. I had to wriggle out of something to make [Mrs. Henderson Presents] happen, but it feels good to be back.

Your connection to America, though, is palpable. How do you feel about working there?
I do love it there! At times I even feel like I was born in America in another era. I used to cut out pictures of the Manhattan skyline when I was two; my sister’s got that same thing with New Zealand.

Age two? That’s starting early!
And it had nothing to do with the business of show. It was, like, “What’s that Chrysler Building about?” As a kid, that was what got to me.

What about Mrs. Henderson Presents—any talk of an onward life this time around?
[The show] might go somewhere else. Let’s just put it that way.