This year's fundraiser offered "up a modern-day burlesque show packed with museum-quality human canvases that would make an art critic blush," according to press notes. Broadway Bares was created by Jerry Mitchell, the Tony-winning choreographer who is currently represented on Broadway with Catch Me If You Can. The 20th annual Broadway Bares, which was held June 20, 2010, raised a record-breaking $1,015,985 for BC/EFA.
Here is a look at the performers onstage and in the busy dressing room area:
Tony Award winner Beth Leavel, currently on Broadway in the new musical Baby It's You, kicked off the evening singing "Going, Going, Gone," written by Chad Beguelin and Matthew Sklar. Tony nominee Patina Miller (Sister Act) performed the finale, "The Final Masterpiece."
Other special guests included Tony nominee and Emmy Award winner Judith Light (Lombardi), Emmy winner Jim Parsons (The Normal Heart) and Tony and Emmy winner David Hyde Pierce (La Béte).
A little Bares history: Nearly 20 years ago, Legally Blonde's Mitchell, who once danced nearly naked on a drum in The Will Rogers Follies, found himself inspired to take it all off to raise money for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, and Broadway Bares was born. The first year, he and seven other Broadway dancers raised $8,000 for the charitable organization.
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Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS is the nation's largest industry-based, nonprofit AIDS fundraising and grant-making organization. Since its founding in 1988 the organization has distributed over $195 million for services for people with AIDS, HIV or HIV-related illnesses. For more information call (212) 840-0770 or visit www.broadwaycares.org.
