HIGHLIGHTS: Broadway Bares 25

Sunday night the 25th anniversary edition of Broadway Bares played to two sellout audiences at Manhattan's Hammerstein Ballroom. This year's show was titled Top Bottoms Of Burlesque and as you'll see, it was spectacular from the moment the curtain arose to reveal the bouncing bottoms of buff chorus boys. All 25 years of Broadway Bares are available on DVD and they are taking pre-orders for this year's show.

Laverne Cox Performs At Broadway Bares

At last night's 25th annual Broadway Bares, Laverne Cox performed in a number titled Casting Couch with Casey Lee Ross playing the director.

Meet The Dancers Of Broadway Bares

The "Casting Director" is Casey Lee Ross. Get tickets.

Broadway Backwards: Cell Block Tango

Posted in full yesterday: "Highlights from Broadway Backwards 2015 included Chicago's 'six merry murderesses' represented in a sexy, all-male version of Cell Block Tango featuring Joshua Buscher-West, Marty Lawson, Alfie Parker Jr., Waldemar Quinones-Villanueva, Alex Ringler and Ryan Steele."

HIGHLIGHTS: Broadway Backwards 2015

Broadway Backwards Raises Record $466K For Broadway Cares & NYC LGBT Center

Via press release:

The 10th anniversary of Broadway Backwards capped off an exuberant, exhilarating and emotional evening of performances on Monday, March 9, 2015 with news that this year’s event raised a record $466,717 for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center. The sold-out show included 20 audience-pleasing numbers and multiple standing ovations for Tituss Burgess, Lena Hall, Florence Henderson, Norm Lewis, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Lillias White and more Broadway favorites, as well as a special appearance by recent Kennedy Center Honoree Lily Tomlin. Julie Halston and Rob McClure served as the evening's jovial hosts. Broadway Backwards is the annual celebration where gays and lesbians see their stories told through the great songs of musical theatre, sung by their favorite Broadway performers. It is produced by Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and was presented again in the historic Al Hirschfeld Theatre, home to the Tony Award-winning Best Musical Kinky Boots. This year’s edition of Broadway Backwards featured a spirited 66-person cast and an onstage orchestra of 13 performing some of the most memorable numbers from previous editions of the benefit.

I was there with my buddy Mike and it was fantastic as always. As she did several years ago, 81 year-old Florence Henderson stole the show with a bawdy performance that included a macking session with an Alice stand-in. Peering into the upraised hindquarters of a muscular dancer, she quipped, "Is that the Holland or Lincoln tunnel? Helloooooo?" Mrs. Brady would not have approved. I'll post videos when they become available - in the meantime check out Playbill's photo gallery.

Broadway Backwards Reveals 2015 Cast

The tenth annual Broadway Backwards is next month and to celebrate the anniversary some of the show's most noted performers will be returning.

The roster of stars joining this year's Broadway Backwards includes Tony Award winners Len Cariou (Sweeney Todd, TV’s “Blue Bloods”) and Brian Stokes Mitchell (Kiss Me, Kate), Tony nominee Tony Yazbeck (On the Town) and Broadway favorites Tituss Burgess (The Little Mermaid), Julie Halston (You Can’t Take It With You), Ann Harada (Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella, Avenue Q), Florence Henderson (Oklahoma!, TV’s “The Brady Bunch”), Jackie Hoffman (On the Town) and Aaron Lazar (The Last Ship). Additional performers will be announced in the coming weeks. Performers subject to change. "I’m thrilled to welcome back these talented performers for this special 10th edition of Broadway Backwards," creator Robert Bartley said. "Thanks to them and the hundreds of talented performers who have participated in the nine editions of Broadway Backwards so far, we've been able to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars that help provide lifesaving medications, counseling and support for LGBT youth and those struggling with HIV/AIDS." This year's edition of Broadway Backwards will be performed at 8 PM at Broadway’s Al Hirschfeld Theatre (302 West 45th Street, NYC), home to the Tony Award-winning Best Musical Kinky Boots.

Broadway Backwards is my favorite Broadway event and I've only missed one since the show launched. Get tickets here. You might enjoy my slideshow of the 2009 show where Florence Henderson and Eve Plumb (Jan Brady) had an encounter in a women's prison.

TRAILER: Broadway Bares 2015

Tickets have already gone on sale for the always sold out Broadway Bares, which next year returns to the Hammerstein following the demise of Roseland Ballroom. Semi-nudity in the clip below, so cube-dwellers take note.

TOMORROW: Broadway Flea Market

The 28th Annual Broadway Cares / Equality Fights AIDS flea market returns to Shubert Alley tomorrow.

Among the priceless lots available through this year's Grand Auction are private meet-and-greets with stage-and-screen stars Hugh Jackman and Idina Menzel, opening night VIP tickets to 17 of this season's new Broadway shows, walk-on roles at 13 Broadway shows, tribute packages to Elaine Stritch and Joan Rivers, and much more. From posing for photos with your favorite Broadway stars, to buying that lost cast recording, rare costume sketches or special gift you can't find anywhere else – the Broadway Flea Market & Grand Auction promises something for everyone.

Among the many Broadway stars on hand tomorrow will be Tony winners Boyd Gaines, Lena Hall, James Monroe Iglehart, Nikki M. James, Bebe Neuwirth, David Hyde Pierce, Billy Porter, and Alice Ripley. 

Who's On Newsies?

Two of the kids from Newsies performed a Broadway take on the classic Abbott & Costello bit during the Broadway Cares Easter Bonnet shows this week. Every year Broadway casts raise money for Equity Fights AIDS during their their curtain calls for the six weeks leading up to the Easter Bonnet shows.

The generosity of theatre fans during six weeks of fundraising by 57 Broadway, Off-Broadway and national touring companies helped push the 28th Annual Easter Bonnet Competition to another record high, raising $4,532,129 for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Broadway veterans Idina Menzel and Denzel Washington joined newcomers Bryan Cranston and Fran Drescher on April 21, 2014, to announce the final total following the finale of two stunning Easter Bonnet Competition shows filled with song, dance, comedy and 17 elaborate, creative, custom-made bonnets. Since the Easter Bonnet Competition began in 1987, the event has raised more than $58 million for Broadway Cares. Last year's event raised $4,250,542.

More great performances in the bottom clip.

Photo Shoot: Broadway Bares 24

Clip recap:

The 24th annual edition of Broadway Bares will blow the roof off its new home at Hammerstein Ballroom with Broadway Bares: Rock Hard!, an amped up celebration honoring the best of rock 'n' roll. Tickets can be purchased online at broadwaycares.org or by calling 212.840.0770, ext 268. For more information and merchandise, visit BroadwayBares.com. To announce the theme of this year's Broadway Bares, watch this all access pass from the photo shoot, featuring 13 of Broadway's sexiest and most talented dancers paying tribute to some of our favorite rock 'n' roll icons. Broadway Bares combines the naughtiness of burlesque with the razzle-dazzle of Broadway and has been a smashing success since its inception in 1992. The event, featuring the hottest male and female dancers on Broadway, has become one of BC/EFA's signature events. The first Broadway Bares featured just seven dancers performing choreographed stripteases on a bar and raised more than $8,000. Through 23 editions, Broadway Bares has raised more than $11.3 million for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

Tickets are on sale now. Always a sellout.

TEASER: Broadway Bares 24

Due to the demise of the Roseland Ballroom, this year's Broadway Bares will be held at the Hammerstein Ballroom.

Broadway Bares, the unrivaled evening of sexy striptease that benefits Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, will return for its 24th edition on Sunday, June 22, 2014. This year's theme will be announced on Friday, April 11 at BroadwayBares.com and BroadwayCares.org. This always sold-out annual event combines the naughtiness of burlesque and the razzle-dazzle of Broadway. More than 200 of the hottest male and female dancers in New York City take to the stage for two sensational shows at 9:30 pm and midnight at its new home, Hammerstein Ballroom, located in the Manhattan Center.

Always one of the highlights of the Pride season.

Carole King Surprises Beautiful Cast At Curtain Call Plea For AIDS Donations

Beautiful, the Broadway musical that tells Carole King's life story through her songs, has been running for months to record crowds and rave reviews. King had famously declined to see the show, telling Playbill in December after walking out of a reading, "I can't watch my life played out before me."  She changed her mind on Thursday, choosing to attend the show during the week that Broadway casts issue curtain call pleas for donations to Equity Fights AIDS.

She finally showed up. After months of wondering whether Carole King would ever come to see the Broadway musical based on her life and comprising her music, the singer/songwriter surprised the cast and crew by attending Thursday evening’s performance of “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.” After the curtain call, as the cast was doing the annual appeal for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, Ms. King ventured out on stage. “They had no idea,” she told the applauding audience. Jessie Mueller, who earned strong reviews for her portrayal of Ms. King when the show opened in January, wept, along with several other members of the cast. The charity effort became a song auction: Ms. King led the cast in “You’ve Got a Friend.” The appeal raised $30,000.

RELATED: Carole King's 1971 album Tapestry has sold over 25 million copies and is among the greatest selling albums of all time. It swept the major awards at the 1972 Grammys, taking Album Of The Year, Song Of The Year, Record Of The Year, and Best Pop Female Vocal. Tapestry spent 15 consecutive weeks atop the albums chart and 43 years later that remains the record for a female vocalist. The album appeared on the Billboard Top 200 for 302 weeks, another record for a female vocalist, and sixth on the all-time list for weeks on that chart. (#1 is Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon at 741 weeks.)

At Broadway Backwards 2014

On Monday night I attended the ninth annual Broadway Backwards at the Hirschfeld Theatre, where Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS raised $424,000 with their show in which men sing Broadway standards written for women and women sing songs written for men. As always, there were a galaxy of gay musical theater stars both on the stage and in the audience, again making Broadway Backwards the gayest night on Broadway - and that's no easy feat. The event benefited Equity Fights AIDS and the New York City LGBT Community Center.

The highlight of the evening for many was the performance by 99-year old Patricia Morrison, who in 1948 originated the role of Kate in Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate. When the curtain rose to reveal Morrison in a wheelchair glamorously draped in purple velvet, I thought the eldergay sitting next to me was going to need his nitroglycerine. After Morrison delivered a quite touching performance of Brush Up Your Shakespeare (from Kiss Me, Kate, of course), the house went wild with a raucous and sustained standing ovation. Tony winner Julie White, the show's co-emcee, came out and attempted to move the show along, but only added to the mayhem when she ad-libbed, "Ladies and gentleman, our next performer is...is..well, he's FUCKED." Because how do you follow that?

I particularly enjoyed super-cute shortie Andrew Keenan-Bolger playing a Starbucks barista smitten with a tall handsome customer in The History Of Wrong Guys from Kinky Boots. I told my buddy Mike that I just want to glue that guy to my dashboard and drive to Fort Lauderdale. Another treat for me was seeing my favorite Broadway diva Beth Leavel (Tony winner from my favorite Broadway show The Drowsy Chaperone) belt out a hilariously lesbi-fied version of She Likes Basketball from Promises, Promises.

Speaking of things lesbi-fied, Debra Monk opened her number by letting the audience know that the lesbian version of a cock-block is known as a clam-slam. Duly noted. Then she told this joke: "Did you hear about the lesbian who went to the gynecologist? The doctor said, 'You have the cleanest vagina I've ever seen!' And she said, 'Well, I have a girl come in once a week.'" Tip your waitress! Monk and Cass Morgan (both of them the co-authors and original cast members of Pump Boys And Dinettes) then launched into a charming duet of I Still Get Jealous from High Button Shoes which included a soft shoe routine that had Monk jibing, "Who says lesbians can't dance?"

I insist you watch all four compilation clips below.

NEW YORK CITY: Broadway Cares To Host Public Meeting On AIDS Survivorship

On May 9th in New York City, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS will hold a public meeting to address the issues of the generation of gay men who survived the plague.

The Medius Working Group presents a free community forum to assess what it’s like to be part of the “AIDS Generation,” to have lived through the epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s and how those experiences have affected the lives we’ve led since then. The evening begins at 7 pm with an excerpt from the Oscar-nominated documentary How to Survive a Plague, followed by a panel at 7:15 pm and an open discussion at 8:30 pm. The evening will be hosted by the Tony Award-winning star of Angels in America Stephen Spinella, with a panel featuring Jesus Aguais, Dr. L. Jeannine Bookhardt-Murray, Dr. Mark Brennan-Ing, Jim Eigo, Joe Jervis and Peter Staley, moderated by Dr. Perry N. Halkitis.

I'm proud to note that I've been invited to appear on this scientist-laden panel to provide a writer's perspective.