On June 18, the 31st annual Broadway Bares fundraiser welcomed nearly 4,400 audience members to the Hammerstein Ballroom on the eve of New York City’s Pride Week. This year, the show raised a total of $1,877,014 to support the philanthropic efforts of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS (BC/EFA). As many theatre fans know, BC/EFA is an HIV/AIDS and social services programs supporter with theatrical ties stretching back to 1987.
As Tony Award–winning icon André de Shields told TheBody in 2020, when his partner Chico Kasinoir was dying in 1992 and they had no place to turn, it was BC/EFA that helped keep them going. That’s why he always says yes when they ask him to appear in an event. It’s for similar reasons that talented dancers and singers from all over New York donate their services to the charitable organization.
The 2023 edition of Broadway Bares―subtitled “Pleasure Park”―featured Broadway performers Jonathan Burke and Jay Armstrong Johnson as hosts to a delightful fantasia of queer joy, with numbers celebrating sexual liberation, fetish (safe words included), and icons of queer protest honored in a large-scale Drag Storytime. During the performance, a gaggle of stars―including 2023 Tony Award winners J. Harrison Ghee and Alex Newell, Jessica Vosk, and platinum-selling recording artist Joanna “JoJo” Levesque―appeared to entice and tease them into new heights of ecstasy.
“There’s so much we don’t share/Thanks to condoms we wear,” sang the opening performers, as a scantily clad dancer tossed rubbers into the crowd. “It’s a Bares world, after all!”
More Than a Striptease
Both the event Broadway Bares and BC/EFA itself are so closely tied to Broadway that it can be easy to take them for granted. Or to even forget, when dropping cash into buckets on your way out of a Broadway show during fundraising season, exactly where all that money goes.
For Tom Viola, BC/EFA’s executive director since 1996, Broadway Bares means money right out the door―a lot of it, and fast.
“It’s an expensive event, but we’re going to net over $1.1 million,” Viola told TheBody. “And that gets put to work here in New York City and across the country as 470-some grants, immediately. We’re not working with an endowment, we’re not holding onto funds. It comes in, and it goes out.”
BC/EFA’s national grants program is made up of three rounds. The first, in January, benefits primarily food service and meal delivery programs. This year, it provided $2.8 million to 141 organizations. Funds for that round are primarily drawn from BC/EFA’s fall fundraising campaign at Broadway theaters—perhaps you’ve spied the red buckets or seen an actor auction off signed memorabilia following the curtain call. (The Music Man set an all-time red bucket record for a single show last year, raising over $2 million over a six-week period.)
The second round, which typically occurs in March, provides funds to HIV/AIDS organizations and health clinics. This past year, that included delivering just over $1 million. The third and final round benefits direct service providers, substance dependency programs, and harm reduction services; last year, that included over $2.1 million.
The Birth and Evolution of BC/EFA
BC/EFA is also the largest supporter of the Entertainment Community Fund (formerly The Actors Fund), the safety net of social services available to all workers on Broadway, in the entertainment industry, and in the performing arts. In 2021, BC/EFA provided approximately $7.8 million to the Entertainment Community Fund during a period when theaters largely remained closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Viola explained to TheBody that the “breadth and scope” of BC/EFA’s work continues to change and expand in response to shifting needs.
“There is no one organization that tells our national grants story,” said Viola. “But there’s a weave of many that make sure there’s some kind of support and address well-being for hundreds of thousands of folks across the country.”
Equity Fights AIDS and Broadway Cares began as two separate organizations, founded in 1987 and 1988, respectively, both in direct response to the HIV/AIDS crisis. The two merged in 1992. Following breakthroughs in lifesaving HIV treatment in 1996, the organization gradually branched out to cover a menu of issues facing underserved communities―a response both to shifting needs and fundraising realities.
“If we hadn’t begun branching out, then the impetus for the fundraising would have begun to weaken, because many folks had concluded that [HIV/AIDS] was essentially over and dealt with,” said Viola. “And we know that it’s not.” While BC/EFA’s range has extended, it still requires every recipient in its national grants program to have some HIV/AIDS-related component to their work.
The Diverse Beneficiaries of BC/EFA’s Fundraising
Those recipients are many and their work varied. Viola’s hope is that by funding a wide range of organizations serving differing needs across New York City and the country, BC/EFA can broaden an ever-essential social safety net.
A glance at some of these organizations paints the overall picture of his desire to empower the community of people living with HIV.
They range from Donja R. Love’s Write It Out! program for writers living with HIV to the Sero Project, a network of people with HIV and allies fighting for freedom from stigma and injustice.
Love told TheBody that BC/EFA has been consistently funding Write It Out since day one. Love’s relationship with the organization started in 2019, when he reached out to them for assistance on subsidizing tickets to the world-premiere of his groundbreaking play, one in two―which follows a Black queer man as he processes his HIV diagnosis.
Love used the funding he received to provide free tickets to people living with HIV. Six months later, BC/EFA stepped up again to support the encore, virtual presentation of one in two during the 2020 pandemic shutdown. After realizing that he wanted to empower other writers living with HIV to tell their stories, Love reached out to Viola to discuss possibilities. True to their shared mission, BC/EFA came through and continues to support the community-focused program.
Robert Suttle, a co-founder and former assistant director of the Sero Project, had a similar story about BC/EFA’s early seed-planting investments. Suttle explained that when Sero was first created, “many funding organizations weren’t focused on HIV criminalization or how it affected people living with HIV. But Tom made sure that BC/EFA supported us. And I know the organization has also contributed to a number of HIV Is Not a Crime initiatives. The movement has been able to count on them for many years.”
There is also SAGE, a national organization supporting LGBTQ+ elders and their caregivers. BC/EFA funds support the staffing of SAGEPositive, a support program for older adults living with HIV, along with annual dinners, karaoke parties, and an end of summer dance. SAGE also hosts the workshop series Super Sex, which gives space to participants to discuss sex and intimacy in an affirming environment.
That overlaps with the work of GRIOT Circle, also a support and advocacy group for LGBTQ+ older adults but one serving a different community in Brooklyn. Aundaray Guess, deputy director at GRIOT Circle, recalled Broadway Cares connecting them with artists who helped GRIOT members put their life stories down on paper ahead of an event where they shared personal narratives.
“No matter what the audience’s preconceived notion about HIV, by these [GRIOT members] telling a human story, people could connect,” said Guess. “It helped them to speak from the heart.”
A similar direct connection between performers and individuals receiving aid is also made possible by God’s Love We Deliver, which provides home-delivered, medically tailored meals for people living with HIV/AIDS, cancer, and other serious illnesses. Shoshana Bean, Erich Bergen, and other Broadway stars have delivered meals directly to clients’ doors, while Tony Award-winning stars, Hugh Jackman, Sutton Foster, and Jane Krakowski have stepped in to record promotional videos for the organization.
“We are so grateful to have our friends from Broadway join us,” said Emmett Findley, director of marketing and communications at God’s Love We Deliver. “When Broadway volunteers, their efforts help raise critical awareness about our work so that people will volunteer, donate, and, most importantly, become or refer a client.”
For the Ali Forney Center, which shelters and supports LGBTQ homeless youth, the visibility provided by the Broadway community’s active involvement helps draw attention to some of the center’s essential services: physical and mental health programming, HIV testing, gynecological care, and gender-affirming care.
“The populations we serve are so often overlooked, and their stories are not on the front page of the paper,” said Zachary Cohen, director of development at Ali Forney Center. “To get talent who have a large microphone to help us spread the word … is a game changer.”
And Ali Forney Center’s work connects directly with that of Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, which BC/EFA has supported for nearly 30 years. Funds for Callen-Lorde have primarily supported young people ages 13 to 24, who need fast-tracked testing and treatment for any and all urgent health needs.
“We do it all in partnership with the other organizations that are serving our communities,” said Donnie Roberts, senior director of development and communications at Callen-Lorde. “SAGE and Brooklyn Community Pride Center and all these landmark organizations that are doing really amazing work—one thing that is really common across all of them is the support of Broadway Cares.”
So behind every zany Easter bonnet, red bucket cash drop, or delectable Broadway Bares striptease is an amazing narrative that declares: Broadway not only cares, its members remain committed to fighting AIDS and ensuring that people living with HIV receive the treatment and dignity that they deserve.
All of the photos are copyrighted by Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS