A star was born!

The Princeton Symphony Orchestra is holding a special birthday party, called Celebrating America at 250. Actually, that would be birthday parties, the weekend of June 19-21.

It starts Friday evening with Great Ladies of Jazz, a tribute to the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, and Judy Garland.

Saturday evening, it’s the Bacon Brothers — composer Michael and his A-list actor sibling, Kevin — who perform a mix of folk, rock, soul, and country.

But the pièce de résistance is Sunday afternoon: American Fanfare, a Salute to the USA. It’s a family-friendly affair (it is Father’s Day, after all). Fun activities for kids begin at 1 p.m., followed by the PSO performance at 3 p.m. featuring guest vocalist Julie Benko.

In a Zoom call from Naples — she’s there rehearsing for an appearance with the Naples Symphony — Ms. Benko, 37, says she’ll sing several patriotic songs with a local youth choir: “‘God Bless America,’ ‘My Country Tis of Thee’ and another song called ‘Folded Flag,’” she said.. It’s about fallen soldiers and honors fallen veterans.

“But for my solo pieces, I’m doing a lot of Broadway: ‘Don’t Rain on My Parade’ from ‘Funny Girl,’ ‘I dreamed a Dream’ from ‘Les Mis,’ ‘I’m in Love With a Wonderful Guy’ from ‘South Pacific.’”

Though heavily weighted toward show tunes, the repertoire for her many concert appearances is “different depending upon what the concert series is, what the orchestra is interested in programming and the time of year,” Ms. Benko said. “I have a conversation with the artistic director or the conductor or whoever is in charge of that particular concert. Sometimes I make suggestions.

“I always feel that ‘I’m in Love With a Wonderful Guy’ is great for an orchestra, because there’s a whole section where Nellie” — that’s Nellie Forbush, the show’s lead, who sings it in the show — “is dancing, so the orchestra gets to show off. Players get solos. Certain things pop up again and again, because obviously I’m suggesting things that I know and love.”

That love centers largely on the Great American Song Book, which is understandable since she is thisclose to becoming one of the great ladies of Broadway.

As every aficionado of Broadway musicals knows, in 2022 Ms. Benko was understudy to Beanie Feldstein, then starring as Fanny Brice in “Funny Girl.” This was a role originated by Barbra Streisand. Did I mention Barbra Streisand? Ms. Feldstein’s performance was fine, but she was not Barbra. Critics (unfairly, I thought) savaged her, and she left the show early.

Ms. Benko filled in — to glorious reviews — and a star was born.

But this is far from an overnight success story. She’d begun preparing for the moment when she was 14 and cast as Hodel in the Bridgeport, Conn., JCC production of “Fiddler on the Roof.” It was a role to which she might not have aspired were it not for the late Andrew Silverman, the cantor tutoring her for her bat mitzvah.

She grew up in a Jewish family in Fairfield and attended Hebrew school at Temple Israel, a Reform synagogue in Westport, though not willingly. “To get me out of bed in the morning, my mother would give my sister a glass of water to pour over me, because I really did not want to go,” she said.

But there was one unintended benefit that grew out of her studies. “I’d been begging my mom for voice lessons. My mom was like, no, of course not. Why would I give you voice lessons?’ But then my cantor told her that I was really talented and that she should give me voice lessons.”

She received further affirmation of her talent from Toni Beth Silver, who directed the JCC production. “I asked my dad to drive me to this audition, and he said sure. Then my sister said she wanted to come along and we said fine. And then my mom said, ‘Well, I’m not sitting home alone while you’re all going to this thing without me.’”

And, as they say in the show, miracle of miracles, all four were given parts: Julie as Hodel, sister Allison as Bialke, dad Stephen as Morcha. Even Julie’s mom, Gail, reluctantly took on the tole of a villager.

“The director sat me down at the end of the run and said ‘I think you can do this if you want to,’” Ms. Benko said. “That was the first time it really entered my universe as something that I could do professionally.”

After college she traveled the road taken by countless Broadway dreamers for generations. She took understudy jobs, was part of the ensemble — and then there was “Funny Girl.”

Since then, she starred as Ruth Stern in the Broadway production of “Harmony” and had a turn as Emma Goldman in the Tony-nominated revival of “Ragtime.”

I asked her if the past few years have lived up to the hype. “I don’t know,” she said with surprising honesty. “I think some people who are not in the industry assume that once you have broken through you can just do whatever you want. That, you know, offers just keep banging down your door. You’re turning things away.

“I have gotten to a new level in my career. I compete for roles that I never would have been considered for before. But now I’m competing against Tony Award winners or nominees. There are 10 of us who are fantastic, but there still is only one role.

“I have opportunities I wouldn’t have gotten before, but you still have to work hard for the audition. You still have your heart broken when you don’t get it. I’ve gotten to the final two many times, and then they pick somebody else for whatever reason. You don’t know why. Maybe the other person has 2 million Twitter or Instagram followers. Or maybe they were a little taller or looked younger or looked older. They don’t tell you.

“So you know, you just keep going. Unless you’re a major star — a Denzel Washington — that’s how it goes for everyone else. It’s just a lot of disappointment, and then you get something and you celebrate that.

“Every job you have in this industry is a temporary gig. Every single one. Whether it’s a good job or a bad job. You always have to hustle for the next job.”

Besides the theater and concert stage, Ms. Benko has some other interesting options. She is a filmmaker; she’s writing, directing, and starring in a short, “The Newlywed’s Guide to Physical Intimacy,” a sort of how-to for ultra-Orthodox.

“I have done a good deal of volunteer work with this organization called Footsteps, that is based in New York City,” she said. “It’s the only organization that provides social services to people trying to leave the chasidic community, many of whom are raised with either minimal or no knowledge of English, don’t have basic math skills, or know how to live in a secular environment.

“So even if they don’t want to leave their community but do a little outside it, they just don’t have the skills. This organization provides support. In my life before ‘Funny Girl’ put me on the map, my survival job between shows — and sometimes during shows — I was a SAT tutor.

“So at Footsteps, I was tutoring multiple women who were studying for their GED. Through talking to them and learning their stories, I was really impressed with how smart they were. Also I was so angry on their behalf, because they were given so little knowledge.”

And by knowledge, Ms. Benko means not just numbers and words, but knowledge about their own bodies. “I found his book called “The Newlyweds Guide to Physical Intimacy, co-authored by an Orthodox rabbi and a sex therapist, that explained to the community what they’re supposed to do on their wedding night. I was really impressed with the way it was written. It was very accessible. There were no pictures, because they thought that would be took off-putting. But in the back there wass an envelope containing hand drawn stick figures that the couple could refer to if they wanted.”

The authors gave Ms. Benko permission to adapt the book for a rom-com “about two people who don’t know each other, who have to do things they don’t know how to do. It wasn’t a documentary.”

It did well in some festivals, won some awards, and has apparently been used as a guide since then by Orthodox sex therapists.

And while we’re on the subject of sex, Ms. Benko has also written a play that uses George Bernard Shaw’s “Mrs. Warren’s Profession” as a starting point

Called “Down the Line,” it is set in New Orleans’ red-light district, more commonly called Storyville, where prostitution was legal for about two decades before the start of World War I.

“It was considered the most ethnically diverse 20 blocks in the Jim Crow south,” Ms. Benko said. “It’s where they say jazz was born. Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton came up playing in these brothels. I did a lot of research on the people who worked in the district. Some of the character sin the play are real people; some are based on real people.”

One of those real people is Tony Jackson, one of the most sought-after singer/composers in Storyville, even though he was gay. When the district was closed, he moved to Chicago, hoping for more professional and personal freedom. But “he died quite young, before he was able to be recorded,” Ms. Benko said. His songs make up much of the music in “Down the Line.”

Ms. Benko seems to be at a good time in her life. “Down the Line” is in development for production next year. She has a slew of concerts booked. And she and her husband, jazz pianist (and her musical director) Jason Yeager, have a 20-month-old daughter, Sophia, who still is young enough to accompany them as they travel.

But I wonder if she’s tired of regular comparisons to Lou Gehrig and Leonard Bernstein, both of whom won lasting fame after unexpectedly substituting for an established star. Like this one, every story written about her brings up “Funny Girl.” I’m curious about whether it’s still funny.

“I do want to move on from it and do other things,” Ms. Benko said. “But I have been able to. I don’t know what the future brings in terms of my next jobs, but that experience was really exciting.

“What I love about that story is that I still have people who see me on the subway or in the street or at a restaurant come up to me and say, ‘Your story meant so much to me. It made me decide to keep trying.’

“I think my story represents what can happen if you keep showing up and working hard, even if you’re not getting the accolades and attention.

“It was this moment of breakout where an unknown who had been plugging away for 15 years got some recognition, I think that has given a lot of people hope.” =