Gonzalez, Olivo, Abraham, Neuwirth, Battle & More Join BROADWAY BACKWARDS; Full Cast Announced

BroadwayWorld.com has learned that joining the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS (BC/EFA) and The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center (the Center) BROADWAY BACKWARDS 6, the only Broadway event custom-made for the gay and lesbian community, its friends and families, will be Bebe Neuwirth, Lillias White, F. Murray Abraham, Hinton Battle, Karen Olivo and Mandy Gonzalez, Brooks Ashmanskas, Ward Billeisen, Colman Domingo and Jason Tam.

The one-night-only event will be held Monday, February 7 at 8 PM at Broadway's Longacre Theatre (220 W. 48th Street). BROADWAY BACKWARDS 6 is produced by BC/EFA and will benefit BC/EFA and the Center.
  
BROADWAY BACKWARDS will feature some of Broadway's biggest names singing songs originally written for the opposite gender: women singing songs written for men and men singing songs written for women. By keeping all of the lyrics intact, including the original pronouns, each song takes on an entirely new dimension, sometimes with hysterical results and sometimes with immensely touching results. BROADWAY BACKWARDS will give its audience a chance to see and hear some of the most treasured songs of the Great White Way in a whole new key. 
 
Creator Robert Bartley will again direct and choreograph with co-choreographer/associate directorKathryn Kendall and musical direction by Chris Haberl. The creative team also includes lighting designer Paul Miller, costume designer Philip Heckman and musical supervisor Patrick Vaccariello.
 
BROADWAY BACKWARDS began as a grassroots concert performed at the Center in 2006.  In subsequent years, the event grew quickly, performing Off-Broadway at 37 Arts, followed by Roundabout's American Airlines Theatre and last year at Lincoln Center Theater at the Vivian Beaumont.
 
Tickets are available now at www.broadwaycares.org or by calling 212-840-0770, ext. 268. 
 
Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS is one of the nation's leading industry-based, nonprofit AIDS fundraising and grant-making organizations.  By drawing upon the talents, resources and generosity of the American theatre community, since 1988 BC/EFA has raised over $195 million for essential services for people with AIDS and other critical illnesses across the United States.   
BC/EFA also awards annual grants to more than 400 AIDS and family service organizations nationwide and is the major supporter of seven programs at The Actors Fund, including The HIV/AIDS Initiative, The Phyllis Newman Women's Health Initiative, The Al Hirschfeld Free Health Clinic and more.  
 
The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center provides innovative social service, youth programs and activities, educational and cultural/recreational programs for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people of all ages. Since its inception, the Center has been the only LGBT-identified resource delivering a continuum of substance abuse prevention and treatment services to LGBT communities in and around NYC. More than 3,000 clients use Center Counseling, Advocacy, Recovery and Education (Center CARE) annually, which offers low-cost/no cost professional counseling and social services for substance abuse prevention and related HIV/AIDS, mental health and gender identity issues. More than 1,000 adolescents participate in our LGBT youth prevention program, the Youth Enrichment Services (YES) Program. In September 2007 the Center opened Center CARE Recovery, the first and only licensed outpatient substance abuse treatment program for LGBT communities in New York State.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride/WM Photos