Ramapo’s Berrie Center hosted the show “Standby, Me” in the Sharp Theater on Sept. 28. The show centers around Julie Benko, popularly known as an understudy in the theater world. But who is Benko? Maybe this is a question Benko anticipates some of the audience to be asking themselves as she steps on stage.
The show included stories about her journey as an understudy, as well as songs, accompanied by her husband, Jason Yeager, on the piano. By the time she left the stage, no one in the theater had any doubt of who she was.
Benko started in theater at a young age. She told the story of a time she asked her father to drive her to an audition of “Fiddler on the Roof” and her sister begged for him to take her too. Not wanting to be alone, Benko’s mother joined them and suddenly the whole family was at the audition. They all ended up with roles.
When in college, Benko talked about being in and out of school, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts to be exact, after landing roles understudying in Broadway National Tours. When the actress who played Wendla, the lead role of “Spring Awakening,” caught the flu, Benko recalled her nervous excitement as she opened the show for the first time.
But it was not all success for Benko. While understudying Cosette in the tour of “Les Misérables,” she talked about an opportunity she had to audition to understudy Fantine. She sang, as she called it, the big song, “I Dreamed a Dream,” with tears streaming down her face. She laughed as she told us she didn’t get it.
Out of college, Benko reprised her understudying roles in “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Les Misérables” on the Broadway stage. She entered the American Traditions Vocal Competition to take a break from the understudying roles. She told the story of how, in form, Benko did not originally make the semi-finals, but made it through as an alternate and ended up winning the competition. Benko broke from the musical theater to sing the jazz song “I Love Paris” and a John Denver tune.
I first learned of Benko from her time as an alternate in Broadway’s revival of “Funny Girl.” She would make TikTok videos about what it was like to play the lead role, Fanny Brice, when the main actress called out. Other fans who, like myself, learned about her from “Funny Girl” named her “The People’s Fanny” due to her being a mix of Beanie Feldstein’s comedic skill and Lea Michele’s vocals – both Michele and Feldstein being the primary actresses while Benko understudied.
She talked about her time as Fanny next. She sang the song “People” and told a story about a mother and daughter who had arranged to go see Benko in the role of Fanny on Broadway. Unfortunately, the mother died of cancer before they could see Benko sing “People” on the Broadway stage. The daughter went to see “Funny Girl” on her own and later messaged Benko that hearing her sing “People,” the song her mother sang to her as a child, was the first step toward healing. This is the part of the show I was most touched by.
Benko told stories of hearing people say that it wasn’t worth it to see “Funny Girl” when Michele wasn’t performing; someone at a store saying that they were thinking of seeing the show but would wait until Michele had returned and someone else in the store defending her saying, “You know, I heard she’s pretty funny.” She sang the song “Funny Girl,” drawing a parallel between her own life and the life of her character.
Benko closed the show with a soulful rendition of “Standby Me,” the song the title of the event riffs upon.
It has been written that Benko gives a good name to understudies. In a New Yorker article, writer Zach Helfand asks Benko what advice she has for presidential candidate Kamala Harris, from a Broadway understudy to a “Presidential Understudy.” Benko assures Harris to disregard comparisons. “Nobody can be Barbra [Streisand],” she says. And she’s right.
Julie Benko is not Barbra Streisand. But after watching an eight-month-old Julie Benko run around in heels, belt crystal clear notes, cry on command and drape herself on audience members, I can say that nobody can be Julie Benko.
fcorona1@ramapo.edu
Featured photo courtesy of @_jujujuliebee, Instagram
