Laura Benanti’s bold stand-up turn hits 2 California stages
Broadway star Laura Benanti is taking her one-woman comedy show, “Laura Benanti: Nobody Cares,” to Southern California. The show plays the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills from Thursday, Oct. 1, through Sunday, Oct. 4, then moves to South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa from Oct. 8 to 11, Variety reported.
The Tony-winning actor spoke with Variety’s Chris Willman about her move into stand-up, a world far from the ingenue roles that made her name.
Why Laura Benanti hesitates to call it stand-up
Officially, “Nobody Cares” is billed as a one-woman show. Benanti told Variety she shies away from the stand-up label out of respect for comics who work the craft week in and week out. Still, she said the show is “most akin to stand-up, for sure,” with five original songs she co-wrote with Todd Almond, who performs with her on stage.
It is not a cabaret, she stressed. “It’s 16-plus (age-wise). There’s adult content; there’s foul language,” Benanti said. “It’s not what people might expect of me if they only know me from my roles on Broadway.”
A clown in an ingenue’s body
Benanti said she has always looked for laughs, even in romantic leads. She has done that since she was 18, when she played Maria in “The Sound of Music,” and her roles were mostly ingenues until about age 30.
“I’m sort of like a clown that was in an ingenue leading lady’s body,” she said. She credited the short-lived Broadway musical “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” and her Melania Trump impression on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” with showing audiences her comic side.
For years, fans at her Broadway concerts told her the stories between songs were their favorite part. Hosting events and writing monologues pushed her further. “I love the puzzle of a joke,” Laura Benanti said.
Where the title ‘Nobody Cares’ came from
Audible commissioned the show, and Benanti said yes right away. Then the doubts set in. “Nobody cares what a middle-aged white lady has to say,” she recalled thinking. “But they paid me, so I had to keep writing.”
The finished show tackles divorce, postpartum depression, perimenopause and a broken neck with a light touch. It has played New York and London, and a filmed version from London is looking for a distributor, she told Variety.
What’s next for Laura Benanti
Benanti said she hopes the show leads to more comedy work, including a TV comedy role. She also appears on “Mayor of Kingstown,” which is returning for a final season.
Tickets for the Beverly Hills dates are available at thewallis.org or 310-746-4000. Tickets for the Costa Mesa run are at scr.org. For more stage news, see our recap of the 2026 Tony Awards and our celebrity news coverage.