Harvey Fierstein and Lainie Kazan Join Rags Concert

Tony Award winner Harvey Fierstein will play Avram and legendary star Lainie Kazan will play Rachel in the World AIDS Day benefit concert presentation of the musical Rags, to be held at 7pm at the Nokia Theater in Times Square on Monday, December 11.

This will be the fourth annual World AIDS Day staged concert presented by Jamie McGonnigal in association with The Joey DiPaolo AIDS Foundation. Stafford Arima and Mark Hartman will serve as director and musical director, as they did for last year’s concert performance of The Secret Garden. MTV correspondent Sway will be the evening’s host.

The performance will also feature Eden Espinosa, David A. Austin, Struan Erlenborn, Max Von Essen, Stacia Fernandez, Aaron Berk, David Josefberg, and Colin Hanlon. The design team includes Traci Klainer (lighting), Walter Trarbach and Tony Smolenski (sound), David Korins (sets), and Michael Bottari and Ronald Case (costumes). Patricia Wilcox will choreograph the show. More participants will be announced shortly.

Rags has music by Tony Award winner Charles Strouse, lyrics by Academy Award and Grammy Award winner Stephen Schwartz, and a book by Tony winner Joseph Stein. The musical tells the story of Rebecca, an immigrant who finds herself alone in America with her young son and goes through the “melting pot” experience. Although Rags had only a very brief run on Broadway in 1986, it received five Tony nominations. Dick Latessa (Fierstein’s Hairspray co-star) and Marcia Lewis played the roles of Avram and Rachel in the Broadway production.

Proceeds from the Rags concert will benefit The Joey DiPaolo AIDS Foundation and Camp TLC (Teens Living with a Challenge), a residential summer camp for young people with HIV/AIDS. For more information, visit www.WorldAIDSDayConcert.org.