Laura Benanti — Nominee for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical

Show:
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

Role:
Candela, the heroine’s dizzy best friend, who discovers that the man she has been dating is a terrorist.

Bio Brief:
Benanti, who reigns as Broadway’s most in-demand young musical actress, has been stretching her talent in recent years in in plays such as In the Next Room or the Vibrator Play and Why Torture Is Wrong.

Other Honors for This Role
—Broadway.com Audience Choice Award nomination for Favorite Funny Performance
—Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical
—Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical
—Drama League nomination for Distinguished Performance

Tony History:
2000: Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical, Swing!
2002: Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical, Into the Woods
2008: Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical, Gypsy

Fun Fact:
Benanti was only 19 years old when she assumed the role of Maria in a Broadway revival of The Sound of Music opposite 65-year-old Richard Chamberlain.

Quotable Quote:
“I love Candela, and I feel very grateful to have that wonderful number [“Model Behavior”]. I love her freedom, because it’s so different from me. I’m a more conservative person.” —Benanti in an interview with Broadway.com, 11/10