Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS (BC/EFA) and The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center (the Center) are pleased to announce BROADWAY BACKWARDS 6, a one-night-only event, will be held Monday, February 7, 2011 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.
Never underestimate the power of a pronoun! BROADWAY BACKWARDS is the only annual Broadway event custom-made for the gay and lesbian community, their friends and family and 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 musical direction by Chris Haberl. Last year's sold out show featured dazzling performances from an impressive line-up of stars boasting four Tony Awards and 20 Tony Award nominations.
Bartley shared: "I am so proud to have created something that provides joy to so many here in New York and helps many, many more who benefit from the important work of these two extraordinary organizations, Broadway Cares and the LGBT Center. We are putting together an exciting line up of stars this year performing some of the most beloved songs of the Broadway stage."
BC/EFA's Director of Communications and Development Danny Whitman explained: "Broadway Backwards offers the gay and lesbian community and our friends and family a chance to see the best of Broadway, but in a whole new light - or shall we say, a whole new key. Hearing
Betty Buckley sing, 'Once you have found her, never let her go,' from South Pacific's 'Some Enchanted Evening' without a pronoun change was absolutely stunning and seemed to touch this audience deeply. Last year,
Douglas Sills' charmingly giddy 'I Could Have Danced All Night' from My Fair Lady stopped the show, as did Broadway hunk
Nick Adams leading the famous Sweet Charity singing and dancing trio in 'There's Gotta Be Something Better Than This.'"
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.
Additional performers for BROADWAY BACKWARDS 6 will be announced in the coming weeks.
TICKETING INFORMATION:
Tickets are available starting today at www.broadwaycares.org or by calling 212-840-0770, ext. 268.
ABOUT BC/EFA
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.
ABOUT THE CENTER
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.