Hello friend, welcome. So fun to have you here today. I am chatting with somebody who definitely, whether she knows it or not, impacted my childhood. She was the voice of Ariel, the little mermaid in the Disney movie. Her

name is Jody Benson and I'm really excited to share this conversation with you so let's dive in. I'm Sharon

McMahon and welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. I'm very pleased to be chatting with Joni Benson today.

Hello, thank you so much for having me.

I really appreciate it.

Oh, well, I was talking to my sister about this upcoming interview and she was like I saw the little mermaid six times in the theater.

So I would love to hear first of all take us back to the beginning. How did you even get started?

Because it wasn't like you just waltzed in one day and you're like, hey, I'd like to be Ariel.

You had a lot of experience before landing this role so I'd love to hear more about

your background.

Well I grew up in Illinois and a kid that just loved to sing and be part of anything I could be a part of as far as theater goes.

So I was probably eight years old I guess when I told my mom I really want to pursue singing, dancing and acting acting and I want to make a living at this.

I don't want to be famous. I don't want to be rich. I just want to do what I love and be able to pay the bills.

So I don't know where that came from because I hadn't seen a Broadway show or anything like that, but that was really my heart's desire. So I just grabbed any kind of opportunity I could in Illinois

and then went to college and that's really

where I had my first chance to have voice lessons

and dance classes and experiences like that.

Left in the middle of school to work professionally, made my way to New York, I was 19,

got my equity card, started doing a national tour of a show, and just kind of started doing it and just fell in love with the whole aspect of musical theater.

So I was starring in a Broadway show called Smile with Howard Ashman and Marvin Hamlish.

And my leading character, Doria, had a song that was written for her name Disneyland,

a beautiful song called Disneyland. And the show tragically closed really early after some horrible New York Times reviews but such a great experience of four years going through that show creating the role and doing all of our

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