Tony Award-winner Laura Benanti recently joined the season 3 cast of ABC's hit series, Nashville (2012), as songbird "Sadie Stone". Last year, Laura appeared in recurring roles on CBS'S The Good Wife (2009) and HBO's Nurse Jackie (2009), in addition to her critically-acclaimed performance as "Elsa Schrader" in NBC's The Sound of Music Live! (2013), starring Carrie Underwood.
In addition to television work, Ms. Benanti is a highly-celebrated, four-time Tony Award-nominated stage actress, who took Broadway by storm at the age of 18. She received a Drama Desk award, Outer Critics Circle Award and a Tony Award Nomination for her starring role in the Broadway production of "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" for Lincoln Center, where she also starred in the Broadway production of Sarah Ruhl's "In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play". Ms. Benanti earned the 2008 Tony Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical, a Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award for her revelatory portrayal of Gypsy Rose Lee in "Gypsy", opposite Patti LuPone and directed by Arthur Laurents. Her other Broadway roles include "The Wedding Singer", "Nine" starring Antonio Banderas, her Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award-nominated performance of "Cinderella" in Stephen Sondheim's "Into the Woods" and her sultry Tony-nominated turn in "Swing!" Ms. Benanti made her Broadway debut as "Maria" in "The Sound of Music" opposite Richard Chamberlain.
Other distinguished theater performances include the Public Theater's production of Christopher Durang's "Why Torture is Wrong and the People Who Love Them", "Perdita" in "The Winter's Tale" at the Williamstown Theatre Festival opposite Kate Burton, "Anne" in "A Little Night Music" at the L.A. Opera opposite Victor Garber, "Eileen" in "Wonderful Town" opposite Donna Murphy and most recently her portrayal of "Rosabella" in "The Most Happy Fella", both for City Center Encores! Ms. Benanti completed a week-long engagement at the popular New York cabaret club, 54 Below, for which The New York Times hailed her as a "supremely confident" performer whose "bright, full soprano, with its semioperatic heft, can go almost anywhere." In September 2013, she released her debut album, "In Constant Search of the Right Kind of Attention: Live at 54 BELOW" on Broadway Records to ecstatic reviews.
Laura currently performs her concerts in venues around the country and even recently performed for the President and First Lady of the United States at both the Fords Gala and the Kennedy Center Honors in Washington DC.
Laura's past television credits include a starring role in the NBC series "The Playboy Club" and "Go On" opposite Matthew Perry. She also starred in the F/X original series "Starved". Ms. Benanti recurred on "Law and Order: SVU," "Royal Pains," and "Eli Stone." and had appearances on "The Big C" and "Elementary".
She just completed shooting the pilot for "Supergirl", where she will play Alura Zor-El, the mother of the title character.
