Review: BECOMING BENANTI: THE ROLE OF A LIFETIME at The Green Room 42 Becomes Kayla Capone Kasper

Saturday night, not five seconds out of The Green Room 42 after the performance, my husband turned to me to give me his review of the show - surprising because our household has a longtime hard-and-fast rule prohibiting us from discussing any show until we are five blocks away from the venue.

"Well, THAT was ADORABLE."

My husband (having a life of his own) does not attend many shows with me - only the ones that really interest him. Since he (his name is Pat Dwyer) is the world's biggest Laura Benanti fan, quite naturally, he was very interested in seeing Kayla Capone Kasper's one-woman musical cabaret BECOMING BENANTI: THE ROLE OF A LIFETIME. Well. It turns out Pat is not the world's biggest Benanti fan. It turns out that Kayla Capone Kasper is. She is also, uncannily, similar to Laura Benanti, facially, musically, and professionally. And the show that she has created about her spiritual, artistic, and (now) personal relationship with Laura Benanti is one of the sweetest, most charming, and, yes, even adorable nightclub acts to play New York City this season - although the likelihood of the show getting an encore this season is slim, since Kayla Capone Kasper is a working actress with two upcoming gigs, playing dream roles in Once and in (you guessed it) She Loves Me. Before jetting off to do these parts, though, KCK got to work on THIS dream role.

Becoming Benanti is an hour-long cabaret play in which Capone Kasper arrived at The Green Room 42 to audition for a role, the role of Laura Benanti. Explaining to the auditor her connection to Laura Benanti, Kayla covers everything from their eerily similar faces, their soprano singing styles, and the attitudes and philosophies that Benanti, herself, shares on her social media, attitudes and philosophies that Capone Kasper shares and follows. It truly isn't a case of Single White Female or The Talented Ms. Capone Kasper because, thanks to social media, Kayla and Laura have become friends, so much so that Benanti made guest appearances in the evening via video clips used in their mutual social media outings, and one special personal video that Benanti sent directly to Kayla. The entire outing was like a kind of show business fairy tale, one where the protagonist gets the role in the end, befitting because Capone Kasper is a person for whom you find yourself rooting.

Working with co-writer and director TJ Creedon, Ms. Capone Kasper has broken down her presentation into two acts - the first one embracing the device of the "audition" and allowing Kayla to share - with the auditor (present via a god mic) - her journey as a Benanti fan, peppering the tale with family reminiscences. Using music from Benanti's Broadway career, the bright and bubbly Kayla shares shop talk, Benanti factoids, and an inspirational story about her Octogenarian grandmother who still plays in a band and still writes Kayla a letter a week. All of the Benanti tunes were kept straightforward and true to their origin, and all of them were performed to perfection, with a Sound of Music medley scoring high comedy marks and a ballad from Nine serving to, sufficiently, swell the heart. Once this first half of the show had crossed its finish line, though, KCK made a pivot into the personal, sharing the story of how social media changed her life by making her a viral TikTok artist and coach with ten thousand followers (an impressive feat). It is her work on TikTok that first introduced her to Laura and their mutual wish to inspire young people and artists to reach for their dreams, to remain optimistic, and study their craft. This half of the show gave Capone Kasper a chance to share some songs from her own history, rather than the Benanti canon, as well as a plethora of her TikTok creations. It can be dangerous, turning over your live cabaret to a lengthy video presentation and it should be discouraged, but in the case of Becoming Benanti, the film footage was absolutely essential. It helped the audience to understand precisely what Kayla does on TikTok, the importance of the work as inspiration and as entertainment, and how it informs her life now. The footage also placed in context the manner and the validity in the meeting of the two doppelgangers, and the bond that they share, as teachers and leaders. And, thanks to Ms. Benanti's status as one of the funniest human beings on earth, the videos provided many laughs for the audience... and one enormously special moment.

After announcing that she will be playing Amalia in She Loves Me in a few weeks, Kayla Capone Kasper played two direct video messages from Laura Benanti, the first a joke video that started "Hi, this is Laura Benanti! You may know me... from your face," and that went on with humorous rhetoric about a cease and desist. The second video, though, was one in which the recent My Fair Lady star offered some advice on playing Amalia...

"I know that you're going to be playing Amalia... I played Amalia. I was pregnant, so my situation was a little barfy. So, I can really only give you recommendations for how to play Amalia if you're pregnant. Oh, you ARE?!"

And then came the gay gasp. An entire theater full of Green Room 42 patrons began to cheer. And Kayla Capone Kasper was out of the pregnancy closet... and in tears. It was one of the magical moments that can happen in cabaret, that an audience will remember forever.

"I'm just imagining my phone right now," blurted out Kayla, once the screaming had subsided. "And my mom, at home, probably sobbing. She knew, but, yeah."

Like most Green Room 42 shows these days, Becoming Benanti was being live streamed, so Laura Benanti's message reached many. The message announcing the pregnancy wasn't the only one that evening; one of the messages of KCK's club act was particularly resonant. Cabaret has a chance to grow with the times. Kayla's life and career changed because of social media, basically giving birth to this adorable cabaret show, one that had a digital program available via QR code, one that live streamed to people outside of the city or in the city but more comfortable staying home, one that featured all the TikToks and Laura's video to Kayla. This is cabaret act for 2022, and although the main theme of Becoming Benanti was the universal connection that everyone might feel to a famous person that inspires their work and their life, the secondary theme is the idea that artists should make the most of the times in which they live, which is precisely what Kayla Capone Kasper has done, in all the aspects of her work. And because of that, and because of Laura Benanti, and because of Kayla's insistence on following her instincts and her dreams, not only has her life been made better, so has her art.

And that's cabaret.

The Becoming Benanti Musical Director was Ashley Ryan.

Find great shows to see on the Green Room 42 website HERE.

Kayla Capone Kasper has a website HERE and her Instagram and TikTok handles are @kaylacaponekasper

Kayla Capone Kasper gets a five out of five microphones rating for performing her entire show without the use of a lyric sheet, tablet, or music stand.

Photos by Stephen Mosher

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