With The Neighborhood coming to an end, Beth Behrs is looking ahead to her next project. The performer, who stars as Gemma Johnson in the CBS sitcom, recently told Jennifer Hudson that she dreams of coming to the Great White Way.
“I really want to do The Sound of Music. I don’t want to age out of Maria,” Behrs told Hudson on her daytime talk show. “My daughter loves the music and stuff, so that would just be a beautiful dream role. But I’ll take anything!” she added, noting that performing on Broadway is on her bucket list.
Mary Martin, Julie Andrews, Rebecca Luker, and Carrie Underwood are among the performers to have played the role of Maria across stage and screen. Though she has yet to appear on Broadway, the 2 Broke Girls star made her New York stage debut in the world premiere of Halley Feiffer’s comedy A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gynecologic Oncology Unit at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center of New York City in 2016.
Onscreen, Behrs is known for playing Caroline Channing across six seasons of the CBS sitcom, 2 Broke Girls, and has starred in The Neighborhood since 2018. The eighth and final season of the show is currently airing. Behrs’s film credits include indie comedy Hello, My Name is Doris opposite Sally Field and Pixar’s film Monsters University.
Onstage, Behrs performed in “Backstage at the Geffen” at The Geffen Playhouse in support of arts and education and a special tribute to Carol Burnett. She also appeared on stage with the New York Philharmonic for their New Year’s Eve performance, One Singular Sensation: Celebrating Marvin Hamlisch.
The Sound of Music was last produced on Broadway in 1998, with Rebecca Luker as Maria. 2025 saw a new North American tour, which is ongoing and will run into the summer of 2026. Directed by Jack O’Brien, the tour stars Tony Award nominee Christiane Noll as the Mother Abbess, along with rising star Cayleigh Capaldi as Maria Rainer and Broadway veteran Kevin Earley as Captain Georg von Trapp. Learn more about the production here.
