11th Annual Broadway Stands Up for Freedom Concert Brings Out the Stars for the NYCLU

The 11th annual Broadway Stands Up for Freedom concert was a bona fide smash. A cast of Broadway’s finest – including Tony-winner Randy Graff (City of Angels) and Krysta Rodriguez of the TV series Smash – took the stage on Monday night at the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts to salute the work of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

“We’re so grateful to the Broadway stars who joined us to celebrate the vital link between civil liberties and the arts,” NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said. “They graciously share their talent to support our work, and this year’s show was truly wonderful. Brava to all the performers!”

Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner, a longtime NYCLU member, served as honorary chairman and delivered closing remarks. Andrew Lippa, Tony- and Grammy-nominated composer and librettist of The Addams Family, The Wild Party and Big Fish provided opening remarks.

Audience members were swept away by powerful musical performances and humorous sketches. Erich Bergen sang a heartfelt Michael Jackson’s Man in the Mirror, while others like Julie Halston had folks rolling with laughter in her dramatic reading of an original New York Times marriage announcement —proving once and for all that the same-sex love stories can be just as ridiculous in print as their hetero counterparts.

For the first time ever the NYCLU staff took to the stage singing Frank Sinatra’s High Hopes, led by one of the concert’s youngest talents, Grace Capeless (A Christmas Story: the Musical). Closing out the spectacular show Tony winner Tonya Pinkins (Jelly’s Last Jam, Caroline or Change) led the entire theater in an inspiring performance of We Shall Overcome.

The cast also featured Tony nominees Charl Brown (Motown) and Kate Baldwin (Finian’s Rainbow) ; Julie Halston (Anything Goes), Lauren Molina (Rock of Ages, Sweeney Todd), Nellie McKay (Threepenny Opera, Old Hats), Lisa Kron (Well), Zachary Prince (Baby, It’s You), Todd Buonopane (Spelling Bee, 30 Rock), and founding performer Liana Stampur with Clinton Curtis and the Clinton Curtis Band.

The show was staged by Daniel Goldstein, director of the recent Broadway revival of Godspell. Georgia Stitt (America’s Got Talent, Broadway Divas) served as music director. Susan Blackwell ([title of show]) hosted.

And the stellar Keenan-Bolgers – Tony-nominated Celia and her brother Andrew – presented a tribute video that taps the talents of dozens of enthusiastic Broadway stars whose performance schedules didn’t permit them to join in person.

Proceeds from the show benefit the NYCLU’s youth programs, including its work with LGBT teenagers; its Teen Activist Project, which engages New York City teens as organizers and peer educators on civil rights and civil liberties issues; and its work to stop overly aggressive policing and zero-tolerance discipline in the city’s public schools.

Photos by Donna Aceto