J. Harrison Ghee, Alex Newell & More to Join BROADWAY BARES: PLEASURE PARK

Two newly minted Tony Award winners are headed toward the gates of Broadway Bares: Pleasure Park as time is running out to get tickets. The Pride-packed, one-night-only adventure opens this  Sunday, June 18, 2023, at New York City’s Hammerstein Ballroom.

On the heels of their trailblazing Tony wins earlier this week, J. Harrison Ghee (Some Like It Hot) and Alex Newell (Shucked) will bring their fabulous flair to the festivities at Broadway Bares: Pleasure Park along with platinum-selling recording artist Joanna “JoJo” Levesque (Moulin Rouge! The Musical) and Broadway’s Nick Adams (Hulu’s Fire Island), Kyle Brown (Moulin Rouge! The Musical), Stephen DeRosa (Mr. Saturday Night),Taurean Everett (Moulin Rouge! The Musical), Justin Prescott (Funny Girl), Constantine Rousouli (Titanique) and Aléna Watters (Bad Cinderella).

 They join the previously announced Jonathan Burke (The Inheritance), Jay Armstrong Johnson (Parade), Grammy nominee Mykal Kilgore, and Broadway and recording vocalists Marty Thomas and Jessica Vosk.

  Burke and Johnson star as park-goers letting wanderlust lead the way as they and more than 190 of the most delectable dancers in New York City playfully peruse lands of wizardly wonder, sweet confections, animal queendom, dynamic drag and much more.

 Broadway Bares: Pleasure Park, which is produced by and benefits Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, will be open for two performances only: at 9:30 pm and midnight at Hammerstein Ballroom (311 West 34th Street, NYC).

 The evening will help provide meals and medication, health care and hope to people across the country living with HIV/AIDS or facing other life-threatening illnesses and personal crises.

 A limited number of tickets remain available. Tickets start at $75. VIP tickets feature unlimited specialty cocktails and reserved seating. The always popular "Stripper Spectacular" package includes a premium reserved table seat at either show and an invitation to a private cocktail party with Broadway Bares’ Tony Award-winning creator and executive producer Jerry Mitchell. The ''Barest Insider Experience'' includes a premium reserved table seat at the midnight performance, a pre-show cocktail party and access to the final “undress” rehearsal the evening of the show.

 

Ticket details are at broadwaycares.org/bares.

 The show will feature an original opening number written by Tony Award nominee Amanda Green and Richard Rodgers Award winner Lynne Shankel and a closing number performed live and written by Kilgore with adapted lyrics by Kyle Ewalt.

 The book for this year’s show is written by Hunter Bell, Steven Cutts and Troy Britton Johnson.

 Laya Barak returns to helm the production, after directing the last three in-person editions. She is joined by co-director Kellen Stancil, dance captain at Broadway’s The Lion King and a favorite Bares choreographer and performer. Jonathan Lee serves as associate director. Mitchell and Nick Kenkel, a longtime Bares director and performer, are executive producers.

 The choreographers leading the evening’s trek through Pleasure Park, in addition to Barak, Stancil and Lee, are John Alix, Mike Baerga, Nicholas Cunningham, Chloe Davis, Armando Farfan Jr., Billy Griffin, Amber Jackson, Monica Kapoor, Bo Park and Michael Lee Scott.

 This year’s cast represents some of the hottest shows on Broadway, including A Beautiful Noise; Aladdin; The Neil Diamond Musical; Funny Girl; Hamilton; Harry Potter and the Cursed Child; Life of Pi; The Lion King; MJ The Musical; Moulin Rouge! The Musical; Parade; Six; Some Like It Hot and Wicked.  

 Broadway Bares was created in 1992 by Mitchell during his time as a Broadway dancer. Looking for a way to raise awareness and money for those living with HIV/AIDS, Mitchell and six of his friends danced atop a New York City bar and raised $8,000 in Broadway Bares’ first iteration.

 Last year’s standing-room-only 30th anniversary edition raised $1.9 million, bringing Broadway Bares’ lifetime total to more than $21 million for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

 Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, the philanthropic heart of Broadway, 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 theater community, since 1988 Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS has raised more than $300 million for essential services for people with HIV/AIDS, COVID-19 and other critical illnesses across the United States.

 Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS is the major supporter of the social service programs at the Entertainment Community Fund (formerly The Actors Fund), including the HIV/AIDS Initiative, the Phyllis Newman Women’s Health Initiative and The Friedman Health Center for the Performing Arts. Broadway Cares also awards annual grants to more than 450 AIDS and family service organizations in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., providing lifesaving medication, healthy meals, counseling and emergency assistance.

For more information, please visit Broadway Cares online at broadwaycares.org, at facebook.com/BCEFA, at instagram.com/BCEFA, at twitter.com/BCEFA and at youtube.com/BCEFA.