[2] Benesch trained as an actor and received her MFA from Tisch School of the Arts and has been on the faculty of Juilliard.
[3][4] As an actor, Benesch won an Obie Award in 2005 for her role in Lee Blessing's Going to St. Ives and played opposite Dame Maggie Smith in a 2007 London production of The Lady from Dubuque.
[5] In film, she appeared in the 2007 comedy horror Teeth as Kim, the mother of the protagonist.
[6] In 2019, she made her Washington, D.C. directorial debut with the Folger Theatre production of Love's Labor Lost.
[6] In 2022, she directed Noah Haidle's Birthday Candles, starring NYU classmate Debra Messing.