Setting Broadway's Record Straight

On Feb. 4, there were no flamboyant, bit parts to be had on a Broadway stage, and the timeless classics written for star-crossed lovers were turned on their heads and completely re-imagined. At Broadway Backwards 3, homosexual and transgender roles took center stage.

Now in its third year, Broadway Backwards is designed as a benefit concert for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center in New York. This year the performance served as the kick-off event, celebrating the center’s 25-year anniversary.
While shows outside of the Midtown/Times Square area usually offer more liberal-minded theatrical fare, Broadway remains, in large part, conservative when it comes to love and relationships.

“I think every gay kid or lesbian kid listens to Broadway songs and wishes the love songs were about our lives,” said the center’s executive director, Richard Burns. “And for one night, the songs are about our lives.”

The evening’s 21 songs were cleverly crafted and well-performed by a star-studded cast. Women sung love ballads traditionally performed by men, and men took a crack at some show-stopping numbers that are often reserved for women.
“When we see two gay people on stage, we get to experience it the way straight people do. And it’s magnificent,” said Broadway Backwards creator and director Robert Bartley.

Surprise guest Sandy Duncan (Mame) opened the evening with a tribute to Peter Pan—a masculine character who’s often played by a woman in musical theater. Other highlights included Little Shop of Horrors’ “Suddenly Seymour” performed by Anthony Rapp (Rent) and Cheyenne Jackson (Xanadu). And Tituss Burgess (The Little Mermaid) singing Cabaret’s “Maybe This Time” was a stunning take on the Kander and Ebb classic. Lyrically speaking, Into the Woods’ “Hello Little Girl,” spliced with segments of “I Know Things Now” and performed by Michelle Blakely (Saturday Night Live) and Jenn Colella (Urban Cowboy), worked superbly in its woman-on-woman transformation.
The girls from Spring Awakening opened Act II with their version of “The Bitch of Living.” “This is a song that really stands out because it’s so centered on boys and what their inner sexual life is like,” said cast member Phoebe Strole. “I think it made sense for the girls to try and take it on for the night.”

Seth Rudetsky (The Ritz), who’s been the Broadway Backwards host ever since its inception, used the breaks between songs to talk with the performers about their experiences in the industry and their song selections for the evening.

“I like to host with a personal touch,” said Rudetsky. “I either know everybody on Broadway, or I’m obsessed with a certain aspect of something on Broadway—so I’m either going to tell them a story I know, or I’m going to ask them something I’m obsessed about.”

Real life partners David Burtka (Gypsy) and Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother) performed “Take Me or Leave Me” from Rent. “We tend to go for the comedy,” said Burtka. “Actually, we picked it, and then they came with us and said ‘we really want you to sing “Take Me or Leave Me”’ so it was kind of a coincidence, the best of both worlds.”

For a sentiment that has always been there, it’s rather remarkable that no one brought this idea to the stage before 2006. Three years ago Bartley and his boyfriend, Dan Whitman, put together the first Broadway Backwards in just one month’s time.

“Dan really had the idea of wanting to build a program that connected the center and Broadway because so many Broadway performers come to the center, use the center, and every queer person loves the theater,” said Burns. “We wanted a way for there to be a night where Broadway supported the center, supported our gay kids, our gay seniors, and people with AIDS. This is that night.”

Since then the show has grown almost exponentially. With this year’s performance being held at the Roundabout’s American Airlines Theatre, 2008 marks the first time that the evening was showcased on a Broadway stage.

When asked what song he would like to be featured in next year’s Broadway Backwards, Bartley replied, “‘And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going’ from Dreamgirls, because I’m telling you this show is not going to go away.”