Last Sunday night’s charity burlesque show “Broadway Bares 19″ took a slight hit from this terrible recession we are in — raising less for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS than it did last year — but it was still a spectacular evening in which about 200 of Broadway’s best dancers and performers strutted their stuff in front of two packed houses at Roseland.
The show is always a fun capper to the Broadway season — showing the theater community’s heart along with a few other naughtier bits.
The time and effort put into this amazing benefit — in between the performers’ regular eight-show-a-week Broadway schedule — is always impressive. The dance numbers on June 21 were as intricate and as fun to watch as anything to be seen in a regular show but with the added bonus of some frank eroticism.
The two biggest guest stars were Allison Janney from “9 to 5″ and Sutton Foster from “Shrek the Musical.” You could see the pleasure they took in being part of this unique show.
Janney received a tumultuous welcoming ovation that stopped the show cold — the actress looked stunned by the reaction her “Broadway Bares” debut elicited from the crowd.
Sutton Foster has generally played “nice” girls in shows such as “Thoroughly Modern Millie” (which won her a Tony in 2001) so it took the packed house a few moments to register that the very sexy gal with mile high hair was Broadway’s sweetheart. That must have been a tad disappointing for the actress after Janney’s entrance roar, but Foster made up for lost time with a very funny routine sending up her image (the jokes were written by Hunter Bell, one of the geniuses behind last season’s cult musical, “(title of show),” who also put together the sketchy but riotous “book” for the evening’s Internet theme, “Click It!”).
“Broadway Bares” has managed to increase donations every year — since it started with an $8,000 night at one downtown bar in 1991 — so it was too bad that the two terrific shows last Sunday “only” earned $808,819 (down from last year’s $874,372). But that is still more money than most Broadway productions earn from an eight performance week.
(Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS sells merchandise from the benefit at the group’s Website all year long — www.broadwaycares.org. A new site devoted specifically to the history of this great benefit is up and running at www.broadwaybares.com)
