Life Ball Ends 26-Year Run with Broadway Bares Sizzle
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ife Ball, Europe’s largest fundraising event supporting local and international agencies working with those living with HIV/AIDS, celebrated its 26th - and final - annual performance by filling the streets in front of Vienna’s landmark “Rathaus” (City Hall) with fabulous fashion, celebration and activism. “Imagine a combination of New York City’s Halloween Parade and the Super Bowl halftime show, preceded by a red-carpet parade of 20,000 people, most in some kind of drag or high fashion that stretched for four city blocks, leading to the Rathaus,” said Tom Viola, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS’ executive director. “That is the extravaganza of Life Ball with what seemed like all of Vienna involved within the legendary Ringstrasse in the heart of the city.” Broadway Cares, one of the event’s six international beneficiaries that also included amFAR and Charlize Theron African Outreach Project, brought Broadway’s signature razzle dazzle to the proceedings. At Broadway Cares’ invitation, Keala Settle opened the show with a stirring performance of her signature song “This is Me,” from The Greatest Showman. Settle later tweeted that she had “never been to a more electric and unifying event in [her] days on this earth!” Tony Award winner and Broadway Cares Trustee Alan Cumming joined Viola in speaking about the organization from the stage before introducing a video message from the inimitable Billy Porter, a fellow Tony winner, Emmy Award-winning star of Pose and longtime friend of Broadway Cares. Porter spoke of the importance of diversity and inclusion and announced an international performance of “Life Ball Bares,” a Broadway Baresstyle number created especially for the event.
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Behind the Scenes
The sexy and seductive number, performed to Madonna’s iconic “Vogue,” was choreographed by Broadway Bares co-executive producer Nick Kenkel, starred Wicked’s Josh Daniel Green and featured 15 Broadway dancers, augmented with another eight dancers from Vienna. This year’s Life Ball performance also featured actors and LGBTQ activists Lea DeLaria, Lorna Luft and Nico Tortorella, representing Broadway Cares. Over the last two years, Broadway Cares has received $300,000 as beneficiary of Life Ball, as well as being presented with Swarovski’s Crystal of Hope Award at the 2019 Gala Ball. “Broadway Cares is very grateful to have been a part of Life Ball’s extraordinary 26 year run,” Viola said. “It was a wildly extravagant show, but also an important and unique fundraising event filled with incredible showmanship, endless theatrics and, most importantly, support for the most vulnerable across the world. We applaud their success and legacy.”