“Tony award-winning Broadway baby Laura Benanti graces the Fringe with a glittering, polished, autobiographical musical revue that gleefully tears down any of the reasons women today – on and offstage – should care.”
I learned about Laura Benanti a few years ago, when she started her social media campaign #SunshineSongs in 2020, encouraging students whose musical productions had been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic to share their work with her and a circle of equally supportive Broadway stars, including Lin Manuel Miranda. At the time, I was directing the musical Pippin in my final year of university. It closed a few days before opening due to pandemic closures, and Benanti kindly gave us shoutout.
So when I saw that she would be performing at the Fringe, I thought, Why not? Maybe I could return the favor with a little shoutout of my own. I was in for a musical treat of an afternoon.
In just an hour, Benanti takes the tricky topic of people pleasing (something that, from someone like her, could easily come across as a needy apology for being too perfect and successful) and reduces it to a light-hearted, surprisingly relatable musical revue with its own dark twists and turns. There are even a few belly laughs.
As she pulls us along through the story of her career, each chapter is marked with a song accompanied by her band, including co-writer and pianist Todd Almond. The atmosphere they create together is so comfortable, don’t be surprised if you find yourself reacting aloud before you can censor yourself. Benanti, being the expert grain of the stage that she is, will probably clock it immediately and then serve it right back to you with a dash of her lovable, whipsmart humor.
Above all, this is a show about people-pleasing taken to the level of fame and the ways in which Broadway’s particular brand of storytelling does a scarily good job of conditioning women (actors and characters alike) to please the men who still run the storytelling industry.
While I did walk out of the theatre wondering if, for a show about people-pleasing, it still felt a bit too safe and polished, I also came away with a feeling of freedom that only someone like Benanti could gift. At a time when perfectionism is thriving in unprecedented, online, and increasingly toxic ways, Benanti relieves us all of the pressure to perform – onstage and off.
It’s not often that stars descend and opt to share such intimate spaces with you, willing to share the fears and existential crises that you are likely battling too. But I shouldn’t have been surprised, especially after she went out of her way to celebrate my cancelled production at the bleak height of the pandemic. It is a testament to the kind of performer and person Benanti is that she’s decided to share her story at the Fringe. Her show is a reminder that, while it’s important to unlearn the toxic extremes of people pleasing, it’s also likely just a sign that we do care deeply in a world that generally doesn’t.
Laura Benanti: Nobody Cares is a part of the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe and plays until 24 August. Get tickets here: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/laura-benanti-nobody-cares