Benson bringing show to Utah

Robby Benson, best known to at least one generation as a "teen idol" during the 1970s in such films as "Running Brave" and "Ode to Billy Joe," and more recently as the voice of the Beast in Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" (1991), has kept a pretty low profile in the past few years.

But he'll be in Park City next weekend performing a concert version of his 2004 off Broadway musical "Open Heart."

It's also a homecoming of sorts. Benson and his wife, singer-actress Karla DeVito, who also performs in "Open Heart," lived in Park City when Benson was teaching in the Actor Training Program at the University of Utah.

Benson's other passions are composing, teaching and mostly his family, he said by phone from his home in New York City.

In addition to acting in the musical play, Benson also wrote the book, lyrics and music for "Open Heart." "I've been writing before I was even in my teens."

The soft-spoken Benson is also quite witty. He e-mailed several photographs to the Deseret Morning News, including one he said was the guitar on which he does his composing — except it's a larger-than-life metal sculpture on a city plaza.

He began creating "Open Heart" nearly five years ago as a valentine tribute to his wife. In the production, Benson plays the central role of Jimmy, a workaholic director of family-friendly sitcoms who is so buried in deadlines and pressure from home that he appears to suffer a heart attack just as he's getting ready to go home to celebrate his 25th wedding anniversary.

While "Open Heart" is not especially autobiographical, Benson said, "I will never deny writing about what I know. It's one of the funniest ways of looking at something that could be tragic. That's how I look at life."

In the musical, Benson is portraying the director of a television sitcom titled "Open Heart." In real life he has directed such popular sitcoms as "Friends" and "Ellen." Also in real-life, he has undergone open-heart surgeries, first when he was 28, then again at 42 and another just six years later. The 51-year-old performer was born with a heart defect, and he is an activist and fund-raiser for heart research.

Commenting on the latter, Benson concedes that, "I'm not one to do my own PR, I just try to do my best. There are so many ways that, if you're in the public, that you can do good things. I enjoy lending my name to causes that will help other people."

As for the play, it's "a love story," he said. "The 'Open Heart' in the title is about being vulnerable and being open to the person you love."