1993 Normal Heart Benefit Reading Featuring Barbra Streisand, Kevin Bacon, to Be Released

Simon & Schuster Audio will release the 1993 Broadway benefit reading of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, directed by Jerry Zaks, on digital audio for the first time.

More than three decades after it was recorded at the height of the AIDS epidemic, the reading will be available worldwide as a digital audiobook.

The recording preserves Barbra Streisand’s opening remarks, which introduced the evening, as well as the performance featuring Kevin Bacon, Stockard Channing, John Turturro, Harry Hamlin, Eric Bogosian, D.W. Moffett, Tony Roberts, Kevin Geer, David Drake, and Jonathan Hadary.

The reading was originally staged as a benefit for ACT UP New York’s Treatment + Data Committee. The royalties and performer fees from the audio release will benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

The audiobook will be released on World AIDS Day, December 1.