NYC Pride Week: Singing In The Key Of Pride

There is nothing so quintessentially a part of modern American theater as the LGBTQ community. Since the first days of Broadway, when the Shuberts and the Nederlanders came ashore and started building the great playhouses which endure to this day, there has been an LGBTQ presence “on the boards”. Whether it is Tenneseee Williams riding a New Orleans trolley and gaining inspiration, Harvey Fierstein bringing the house down in La Cage aux Folles, a lesbian trio portraying a young woman’s coming out in Fun Home, or being trans on the Great White Way, we children of the rainbow have always found creative expression above the footlights, or behind the rag.

Now comes the fiftieth anniversary of the famous Stonewall Rebellion, the genesis of the modern LGBTQ-rights movement, and in its fire and fury on that hot June, 1969 evening, the theater (is there anything more theatrical than drag queens, gays, lesbians, and transgender people flipping wigs and throwing bricks on Christopher Street?) was there, too. Amid the pitched battles between the bar’s patrons and the NYPD, there were kick lines as though it was Radio City, rather than Sheridan Square. There were actors, directors, and playwrights taking part in the Rebellion, and just as much for them as it is for us today, the story of LGBTQ theater is the story of raising our voices; it is the singing of equality and the acting of solidarity.

For the past eight years, Neal Bennington, the founder of Broadway Sings For Pride has been assembling the best of LGBTQ Broadway and their allies, for a one-night-only benefit that supports nonprofits fighting bullying, suicide, and gay-bashing. Tomorrow, the ninth annual such concert will unfold at JCC Manhattan, once again vocalizing love in the key of Pride. As with every performance of this Pride Week extravaganza, this year’s lineup includes luminaries not only of Broadway, but of TV, film, and journalism as well. Among them are Emmy winner Susan Lucci, RHOA star and celebrity stylist Miss Lawrence, RuPaul’s Drag Racer Yuhua Hamasaki, out former NFL player Wade Davis, and Rent diva Frenchie Davis. It’s a real who’s who of thespians, vocalists, directors, and dramatists.

In giving agency to the LGBTQ habitues of Sardi’s (the restaurant legendary theater columnist Walter Winchell called “part of the language of Broadway”), Bennington has reaffirmed their critical role in making the District the epitome of contemporary drama. In an official and symbolic way, Broadway Sings For Pride is the sine qua non for we who write, act, sing, dance, choreograph, direct, and produce the shows that move the spirit and shake our sensibilities. Fifty years in, this has more meaning to us; even as the struggle for our place at the table continues, we sing. We sing fearlessly. We sing proudly. We sing.

Get your tickets for tomorrow’s concert right here.

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