Editor’s Note: With the Laurie Beechman Theatre about to reopen, here’s a Who Was Who! about the talented actress-vocalist for whom the venue was named.
Laurie Hope Beechman was born on April 4, 1953 and died all too soon on March 8, 199
8, just short of her 45th birthday. She was especially known for her career in Broadway musicals, but was also an acclaimed cabaret and concert artist. It was during the height of her career, in 1988 that she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Beechman underwent treatment and seemed to overcome it, but the cancer recurred and during the last decade of her life, the battle was valiantly fought and lost.
The Philadelphia native, with a powerful singing voice, was recognized as a talent as far back as high school, from which she graduated in 1971. During the summers of 1971 and 1972 she performed with The Destiny Trio, an acoustic folk-rock group, entertaining vacationers at the Manor Lounge in the beach town of North Wildwood, NJ. She attended New York University for several years, dropping out to pursue a Broadway career. Success came in 1977 when she was cast in Annie, playing five different roles. She was shortly thereafter cast in Public Theater’s production
of The Pirates of Penzance and appeared in 1979’s film version of Hair.
At the dawn of the 1980s, Beechman’s successes kept accruing. In 1981 she starred in the Broadway productions of The Pirates of Penzance and then received a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical in 1982 for the original Broadway production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Beechman then stepped into the role of Grizabella in the US national tour of Cats in 1983, before replacing Betty Buckley in the Broadway production in 1984, playing the role for over four years. She revisited that role again for four months in 1997, after a stint in Les Misérables as Fantine.
As for her singing career, Beechman made an album in 1980 for Atlantic Records titled Laurie and the Sighs. However, the release didn’t do well.She went on to record, with greater success, Listen to My Heart (1990), Time Between Time (1993), The Andrew Lloyd-Webber Album (1995) and No One Is Alone (1996). She also performed in concerts and had club dates, 
notably at the Ballroom. In 1992 she married Broadway technical supervisor Neil Mazzella, Her cancer returned in 1995, and though treatments were ongoing, Beechman continued to perform nearly up to her death
In addition to the theater in the West Bank Cafe, The Laurie Beechman Cabaret at University of the Arts in Philadelphia is also named for her as is a scholarship in her name. In 2023 the theatrical stage at her alma mater, Haddon Township High School, N.J., was officially named for her. Laurie Beechman is buried at Montefiore Cemetery in Rockledge, Pennsylvania.
