Broadway Backwards Raises $281,243 for BC/EFA!

BROADWAY BACKWARDS 6, the one-night-only event held Monday at the Longacre Theatre, raised a record-breaking $281,243 to benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center (the Center), according to BroadwayWorld.com.

This year's total far surpassed last year's previous record total of $186,780.

BROADWAY BACKWARDS is the only Broadway event custom-made for the gay and lesbian community, our friends and families. This year's edition featured a stunning 64-person cast that included Tony Award winners Hinton Battle, Len Cariou, Alan Cumming, Debra Monk, Bebe Neuwirth, Denis O'Hare, Karen Olivo and Lillias White, Academy Award winner F. Murray Abraham and American Idol runner-up Clay Aiken.

BROADWAY BACKWARDS re-interprets the songs of musical theater by featuring women singing songs originally written for men and men singing songs written for women. By keeping the lyrics intact, including the pronouns, each song takes on an entirely new dimension. It's Broadway in a whole new key.

Some highlights from this year's sold-out BROADWAY BACKWARDS:

A rousing and naughty rebuke of the military's soon-to-be-obsolete "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy toward gay troops. Until the law is fully revoked, soldiers still can't "tell," prompting Alan Cumming (CBS's The Good Wife) to plunge into a military-themed "Don't Tell Mama" from Cabaret, the show which garnered him a Tony Award.

 Bebe Neuwirth (The Addams Family) returned to her Chicago roots, this time taking on the role of scheming lawyer Billy Flynn in the self-promoting "All I Care About is Love," surrounded by a bevy of glamorous, feathery fan-whirling chorus girls.

American Idol runner-up Clay Aiken, who appeared on Broadway in Spamalot, brought the house to tears with his heart-felt yearning for "Home" from The Wiz.

The leading ladies from the original Broadway cast of In the Heights - Mandy Gonzalez (Wicked) and Karen Olivo (West Side Story) - reunited for a new take on the In the Heights show-stopping love song "When You're Home."

Lillias White, Tony winner for The Life and most recently seen in Fela!, had the audience dancing in their seats and stopped the show cold, showing off seemingly limitless vocals with a Ray Charles arrangement of "Some Enchanted Evening."

Tony Yazbek, who appeared as the scene-stealing Tulsa in the recent revival of Gypsy, left the audience in awe after a breathtaking, heart-pounding redition of "Music and the Mirror" from A Chorus Line.

F. Murray Abraham (Academy Award-winner for Amadeus) concluded the show with an emotional finale with "Hello Young Lovers" from the King and I, celebrating the courageous and brave in our community who stand-up to oppressors and bullies.

Denis O'Hare (Left), Tony winner for Take Me Out and currently starring in HBO's True Blood, partnered with (MK's old bud) Brooks Ashmanskas (Right)  for a hilarious, updated version of "Marry the Man Today" from Guys and Dolls.

Other featured performers included Farah Alvin (The Marvelous Wonderettes), Hinton Battle (Miss Saigon), Ward Billeisen (Anything Goes), Tituss Burgess (The Little Mermaid), Len Cariou (Sweeney Todd and CBS's Blue Bloods), Colman Domingo (Scottsboro Boys), Robin De Jesús (La Cage aux Folles), Derek Hanson (A Chorus Line), Jose Llana (Wonderland), Jan Maxwell (The Royal Family), Debra Monk (Curtains), Mo Rocca (The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee), Brian Charles Rooney (The Threepenny Opera), Bobby Steggert (Ragtime) and Jason Tam (A Chorus Line).

Dan Butler (The Only Thing Worse... and NBC's Frasier) and Kirsten Wyatt (Elf) served as co-hosts for the evening.

Broadway Backwards Creator Robert Bartley directed and choreographed with co-choreographer/associate director Kathryn Kendall and musical direction by Chris Haberl. The creative team also included lighting designer Paul Miller, costumer designer Philip Heckman and musical supervisor Patrick Vaccariello.

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.