Rachel deBenedet

Rachel Helene Kasper deBenedet is an American actress and singer born around 1967 in North Newton, Kansas, whose career has centered on musical theatre. Her upbringing was shaped by a family deeply embedded in the performing arts: her father, Arlo Kasper, was a professional actor and Head of Drama at Bethel College in Kansas, while her mother served as Professor of Voice at the same institution. The family spent two years in Germany, where her father worked backstage at a German opera house, and later relocated to Paraguay, where they contributed to local musical theatre productions. Her father went on to direct and design musicals and operas for semi-professional companies and universities in Paraguay. deBenedet gave her first live performance at age six, in a recital in Germany.

She graduated from Bethel College in 1988 and subsequently built her experience through touring and regional work. She completed two seasons at the Music Theatre of Wichita in Kansas, earning her Actors' Equity Association membership candidacy points, and performed at venues including Theater Under the Stars in Houston, Paper Mill Playhouse, and Sacramento Music Circus. She also spent approximately a year on a bus-and-truck tour of Me and My Girl, followed by additional touring work. After a period of roughly seven years living in Denver, Colorado, during which she continued working in Seattle, Houston, and Sacramento, deBenedet returned to New York City in 1998 and secured a Broadway show within two weeks of her arrival.

Her Broadway debut came in the revival of The Sound of Music, in which she played one of the nuns. She also performed in the national tour of The Sound of Music, receiving a Judy Award nomination for that work. Subsequent Broadway credits include the Roundabout Theatre Company's production of the musical Nine, the drama The Family, Camelot, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and The Addams Family, with her Broadway appearances spanning 1998 to 2011.

Regional work during this period included productions of As Bees in Honey Drown and The Secret Garden at the Arvada Center, for which she received DDCC Awards, as well as Kiss Me, Kate at the North Shore Music Theatre, which earned her IRNE Award nominations. In 2007, she appeared in both the Philadelphia and New York City productions of Christopher Durang and Peter Melnick's Adrift in Macao, winning the Barrymore Award for Excellence in Theater for Best Actress for that role. In 2008, she performed in Turn of the Century at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, a production directed by Tommy Tune that ran from September 19 to November 2 of that year.

In 2011, deBenedet played Paula Abagnale in the Broadway musical Catch Me If You Can, which began performances in March 2011 and opened on April 11, 2011, at the Neil Simon Theatre. The role earned her a nomination for Best Female Dancer, Broadway at the 2011 Astaire Awards.