THIS JUST IN!

Tony-winner LAURA BENANTI brings her act to the Venetian Room courtesy of Bay Area Cabaret on May 12. [GO!]

What's your history with San Francisco?

Last year I sang with the symphony. It was the first time I’d ever been to San Francisco. I walked around by myself and really fell in love with it so I’m really excited to come back. I’m not going to be there very long, which is sad, but I’m excited to be there at all.

Four Tony nominations (and a win) at just over 30 is a pretty amazing accomplishment. Your father, Martin Vidnovic, is also a Tony nominee.

Thank you. My mom [Linda Wonneberger] was a performer as well. In order to support us after they divorced she started teaching voice.

She moved you to New Jersey, where she met and married Salvatore Benanti.

Yup. She met my dad Sal…my stepdad…I actually hate the term 'stepdad.' It feels so removed, when actually he formed so much of who I am today. So it feels disrespectful in a way to refer to him as that. People now are saying bonus dad or bonus mom, but that feels a little like a videogame.

Meanwhile, back in New Jersey…

Yes. [Laughs] So we moved to New Jersey. Certainly it was wonderful in that I grew up in this very small sort of idyllic town. I was forced to use my own imagination on a daily basis. I had so much creativity inside of me, floating out of me on to everyone around me. I feel so many little kids who go into acting as children learn to be cute, and that’s not authentic.

So I really credit my parents for letting me be a normal kid. They supported every activity that I wanted to do within the realm of a nonprofessional life as long as my grades were maintained and as long as I seemed happy and healthy. So I did tons of community theatre and high school shows. I think it kept me a child, which I appreciate now though I might not necessarily have done so at the time. I mean, I was definitely chomping at the bit to get out of that town and be a big Broadway whatever.

Star? You are! You have a 14-year career already - over a third of your life.

I know, and I’m really grateful. I realize now what an interesting story I have in that I didn’t have to wait tables for 10 years. I was in high school and I got a job on Broadway - and playing a grown-up, not playing a child. I have so much gratitude, now more than ever, for how I entered into this business.

It feels like you’re making interesting and smart choices to give your career breadth. I loved Eli Stone.

Thank you. I did too. They were so kind to me because Gypsy came along when I was already cast in that show. Gypsy was my dream role. I had wanted to play her forever. Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim, who were the show runners, were so incredible to let me go do Gypsy and then to bring me back around the Gypsy schedule.  They are such great guys.

Talk about Patti LuPone and her infamous meltdown during the closing week of Gypsy.

It was the night before our closing. I always listened to "Rose’s Turn" because I felt like I wanted Gypsy to have heard that whole thing, you know? When it started to happen I thought maybe the orchestra was off. There was this "Stop! Stop! Stop!" Then I heard "Stop taking pictures! Who do you think you are?" and I turned to her son Josh, who was standing backstage with me, and we both looked at each other and thought, "Oh no. This is gonna be bad!" I definitely was nervous because my first line after that happened was: "You really would’ve been something mother." So that could have been a dangerous situation for me.

She’s caught so much flack for that, but it’s scary to be on stage and have someone taking flash pictures of you. It’s disorienting. She is such an incredible actress and she is so in the world of Rose at that point. She’d been playing her so long. The character is losing her mind at that point and Patti had so many feelings about our show closing, so I think it was just really an unfortunate situation.

I do agree with her. I feel like audiences have become so disrespectful. I was watching Peter and the Star Catcher with my husband and my stepdaughter last week and I wanted to ask, "Is everyone in this audience wrapping a present? Get whatever you want out of your bag and put it away!" Everybody is so loud. The texting, the taking pictures, the answering phone calls, the letting the phones ring, the talking. I get it, we’re a TV society. We feel like were constantly in our living room. There’s really no sense of decorum anymore or an understanding that the people on stage are in fact people who are flesh and blood and can hear you, you know?

So yes, I was definitely nervous coming on stage to say ‘You would have been something mother.’ after all of that, but it was fine. She just sort of collapsed into my arms like a child. She was so hurt, I think, by that, which is something you don’t get to see or hear in the video or the storytelling of it. It hurt her.

The irony of course is that there is video of Patti screaming at someone for taking pictures.

Ohmigod, I know. Is that hilarious?

Since you said we’re a TV society, let’s segue to The Playboy Club. Sorry it got yanked after just three episodes. I liked it.

Thanks. I did too. It was such a bummer because so many special interest groups came after us without even having seen it just because of the affiliation with the Playboy name.  The Christian groups. The parent groups. They were freaking out about it just because we were dressed like rabbits. The thing that I never really understood was - we were simply accurately presenting a historical place and time - no one’s gotten up in arms that Johnny Depp played Dillinger. No one’s asking him if he would really rob a bank.

I can’t tell you the number of interviews I did, a lot of times with men, that were so insulting. As if I as an actress had to apologize for playing a character that was historically accurate. These women existed. They were bunnies. It’s not like we were glorifying that necessarily, we were just saying that this is how it was.

Was the implication how could you stoop to take such a part?

Yes! That was so insulting, as if to say I’m just a little puppet and somebody told me here’s the part you’re going to play so just do it as if I had no input into the fact that I chose this role, or that I was somehow saying that all the women in the world should go out and be a playboy bunny.  I wasn’t saying that any more than any actor is promoting anything that he or she is portraying. It’s simply that -  a portrayal. [Sighs.] It is what it is. Over and done. I have a new show now.

Yes, and your role in Go On it sounds like perfect casting for you. There’s nothing funnier than an absolutely gorgeous woman who turns out to be a little cracked or too tightly strung just under the surface.

She’s definitely tightly strung. I think her heart is completely in the right place. She wants to help people through their deepest, darkest times. She just doesn’t have any skills. So her heart is in the right place, her ability… not so much.

I’m really excited to be working with Matthew Perry. He’s such a cool, smart, funny, intelligent, talented man. He could’ve made it really terrifying for me. He definitely could have reminded me over and over again who he was and he never did. He is so generous and kind and collaborative. That really blew my mind. You might think that a person at that level would be like, "This is how I’m doing it." He was so open. I’m really excited about it, aaaand…there’s no controversy! There’s nothing anyone can be pissed about, so I’m really hoping that this one goes well and that people watch.

Were you a little gun shy about jumping into another series so quickly or did you just look at it as the next job?

The latter. I’ve learned that you really can’t control it. Sometimes it’s gotten complicated for me to understand that I am a person and a human being outside of my work, and that if the show doesn’t work it doesn’t mean that I’m terrible or bad for unlucky or whatever. It just is what it is and that’s what’s meant to be.

Certainly The Playboy Club did wonderful things for me in terms of the pilot season. I had some really nice choices in television, which hadn’t been the case in the past. Chad Hodge, who was the creator of The Playboy Club, has become one of my closest friends. So a lot of good came out of it for me. I’m hoping that Go On, this new show, takes me further along my path.

You just need to work in a musical number every episode, right?

I know! Scott Silveri, who’s the creator and the show runner, mentioned that - that perhaps I could sing. I was like, I can’t sing in everything I do! [Laughs.] I have to save a little.

Well, you’re saving some for the cabaret stage right? Talk about the show you're calling, appropriately enough, Let Me Entertain You.

I feel like I get to be fully myself, which is surprising to some people. I think a lot of people expect me to be very serious for whatever reason, maybe the roles I’ve played. I don’t know what it is, but I think it’s great for people to see how silly I am, to see what an unabashed theater nerd I have always been and always will be. I get to sing songs that I’ve sung onstage, but also songs I would never normally get to sing. So it’s just songs that I love and little stories. I tell stories about Patti. I tell stories about my childhood. I tell stories about working on television and film and stage.

You mean like what were doing right now?

Yeah, exactly, but I want people to feel like they’re coming into my living room. I’ve seen so much cabaret where I just feel removed from it, where it feels really stuffy to me. Maybe it’s just my generation, but it makes me feel like I can’t connect to it. So my goal is to make it feel just easy, like we’re all friends and I’m just singing for you sometimes.

Do you like breaking down the fourth wall?

I love it! So many actors are terrified by that, but I really like it. I don’t know why, I just really do.

Your generation is really not a cabaret generation. In its purest form, cabaret is a performance style of another era.

Yes. Absolutely. I think there are people who are continuing that style and I’m so glad because my worry and my fear, with our television generation, with our Twitter and our facebook and our 15-second attention span generation, is that the idea of someone performing live right in front of you in that very moment is going to lose its potency as we can no longer experience its magic. I fear that. So my show might feel fun to younger people because I’m weird. I have a weird sense of humor and I talk quickly and go off on little tangents and that might feel more familiar to someone my age or younger.

There have been shows that I’ve seen, like with Christine Ebersole or Chita Rivera, where they’re telling stories in a more formal environment and it’s so exquisite. Especially Chita’s show, which blew my mind. It’s unbelievable. Unbelievable. I have a huge appreciation for that.

For me, I just feel that all I can do is come from the place where I am authentically. To do the other thing would feel more like a performance piece for me as opposed to just telling stories and singing songs and letting it be more relaxed. I’m certainly interested in trying the other as well.

It makes me sad to feel that the art form is dwindling as everyone just listens to Pandora.

The demographic for musicals is kind of up there too. There was a surge of girl power with Legally Blonde and Wicked that got young women interested in musicals, but it’s not clear if they’ve stayed past that initial connection.

Can they afford to? That’s the bigger question. It’s really become theater for rich audience. How do children learn to love theater if their parents can’t afford to bring them? I don’t know the answer. I know it’s a problem, but I don’t have a solution.

We used to be able to rely on our educational systems.

We can’t anymore. I also feel like there’s a gentler value system to the world of musicals. It’s an example, at least with the musicals I grew up with, of a gentler time that I think, unfortunately, a lot of kids can’t relate to.

So I hope musicals will continue to evolve to represent what’s happening in our world. A lot of that now is rock musicals, a lot of that is girl power stuff like Wicked, but along with those I really hope that people like Adam Guettel keep writing shows like The Light in the Piazza. I hope that the more empathetic, the more sympathetic means of communication through musicals continues because I would hate to feel like the world is becoming one big rock concert.