Theater News

Easter Parade

The 2004 Easter Bonnet Competition raises more than $3.4 million for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

New York City

This year’s Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS Easter Bonnet Competition, held for two performances at the New Amsterdam Theatre on April 19 and 20, raised a record-breaking $3,439,000 for the organization. The opening number was a tribute to 100-year-old former Ziegfeld girl Doris Eaton Travis, who has been a beloved fixture of the annual event for the past several years.

Here’s a shot of the 42nd Street presentation. (Yes, there is a bonnet in this photo!)


Tovah Feldshuh, star of Golda’s Balcony, modeled that show’s bonnet.

As always, the event was chock-full of alternately moving, hilarious, and thrilling performances to accompany the presentation of the bonnets. Movin’ Out gave us a sketch in which a quintet that closely resembled The Fab Five from TV’s Queer Eye for the Straight Guy offered style tips to the show’s surfeit of heterosexual male dancers, among them the hunky John Selya.

Here are “The Mimis” from Rent, led by original Mimi Daphne Rubin-Vega (who’s now co-starring in the Manhattan Theatre Club’s Between Us).

Deborah Cox, the new star of Aida, was an audience favorite in her first Easter Bonnet Competition appearance.

Here’s a taste of the strange but hilarious “Avenue Jew” collaboration between the companies of Avenue Q and Fiddler on the Roof, which included such numbers as “Everyone’s a Little Bit Jewish.” (No one in the audience was surprised when the sketch won the presentation award.)

And here’s The Phantom of the Opera‘s bonnet. (Yes, again, there is a bonnet in this photo…)






The company of The Producers worked up a pro-gay marriage number. Needless to say, it went over like gangbusters.

Here’s “A Moment With Mahogany” (a.k.a. Michael Benjamin Washington), courtesy of Mamma Mia!

Cast members of The Lion King performed a very sexy “Temptation” dance set in the garden of Eden.

Idina Menzel (Wicked) brought the show to a close with her powerhouse rendition of David Friedman’s “Help Is On the Way.”

When all was sung and danced, the winners in the various presentation and fund raising categories were announced by Sean Combs, Audra McDonald (co-stars of A Raisin in the Sun), and Harvey Fierstein (Hairspray). The Broadway show that raised the most money for BC/EFA was The Boy From Oz — no big shocker, given the tireless efforts of star Hugh Jackman. In about six weeks, Jackman and the Oz company collected $1,172,056 to help fight AIDS. Bravo!