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STAGE TUBE: Laura Benanti & The Skivvies Join the Good Fight in Combating Cell Phones in the Theatre with New Song
By: Tyler Peterson Jul. 15, 2015
The Skivvies and Tony winner Laura Benanti have joined the good fight against cell phone usage in the theatre with a new song, aptly titled 'Look Up.' Written by Benanti, the number "provides musical advice to audience members tempted to use mobile devices during a performance."
The trio's response to the ever-growing problem comes just a week after Benanti's one-time GYPSY co-star, Patti LuPone, snatched a phone from a texter in the audience during a performance of SHOWS FOR DAYS - which came just a few days after the HAND TO GOD rogue attempted to charge his cell phone on stage.
Check it out below!
The Skivvies are Lauren Molina and Nick Cearley, award-winning singer/actor/musicians performing stripped down arrangements of eclectic covers and eccentric originals. Not only is the music stripped down cello, ukulele, glockenspiel, melodica but the Skivvies literally strip down to their underwear to perform. Molina (Broadway's Rock of Ages and Sweeney Todd) and Cearley (All Shook Up) became YouTube sensations with their Skivvies covers of artists like Robyn, Carole King and Rihanna. The videos led to live shows, and now this undie-rock comedy-pop duo, assisted by drummer Shannon Ford, performs to sold-out audience in New York and beyond. They also have a single, "Hardbody Hoedown," with a music video directed by Augusten Burroughs, bestselling author of Running With Scissors.
Benanti can currently be seen on the ABC musical drama series Nashville. Benanti can also be seen guest-starring on CBS's The Good Wifeand last year received rave reviews for her performance as Baroness Elsa Schrader in NBC's The Sound of Music Live! She starred in the NBC series The Playboy Club; Go On opposite Matthew Perry; and in the FX comedy series Starved.
On stage, Benanti received a Tony-Award for her portrayal of Gypsy Rose Lee opposite Patti Lupone in the 2008 Broadway revival of Gypsy directed by Arthur Laurents. She received three additional Tony-Award nominations for her performances in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,Into the Woods, and Swing.
Benanti completed a week-long engagement at the popular New York cabaret club, 54 Below, for which The New York Timeshailed her as an "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 cabaret concerts in venues around the country and even recently performed for the President and First Lady of the United States.
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