The eighth annual auction to benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS will feature a host of teddy bears dressed as famous Broadway characters and will be held at B. B. King Blues Club & Grill, located in Manhattan at 237 West 42nd Street. The evening begins at 6 PM with cocktails and previews of the many glamorous bears; the auction commences at 8 PM. Lorna Kelly will be the event's auctioneer.

Last year's auction raised $127,210 for BC/EFA, the nation's leading industry based, not-for-profit AIDS fundraising and grant-making organization. A bear dressed as Happy End's Lieutenant Lillian Holiday brought in the most funds for BC/EFA, $22,000. (A Producers bear had held the record, bringing in $16,000 in 2002.) Bears featured in the 2004 auction wore costumes from The Producers, Flower Drum Song, Avenue Q, Nine, Mack and Mabel, Take Me Out, Dancin', Carnival, Hairspray, Saturday Night Fever, Little Shop of Horrors, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, 42nd Street, Barnum, Bloomer Girl, Dreamgirls, Follies, A Year with Frog and Toad, Happy End, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Jekyll & Hyde, Li'l Abner, Les Misérables, Lorelei, Mame, Purlie, Ragtime, Rent, Sunday in the Park with George, Taboo, The Wiz, They're Playing Our Song, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Titanic, La Traviata, Wicked, Chicago, Into the Woods, Cabaret and Kiss Me, Kate.

Bryan Batt's additonal theatre credits include Lumiere in Beauty and the Beast; Monty, the disco DJ, in Saturday Night Fever; the Cat in the Hat in Seussical the Musical; Sir Percy in Frank Wildhorn's The Scarlet Pimpernel; as well as principal roles in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Starlight Express and Cats. The actor-singer-dancer also played Joe Gillis opposite Betty Buckley's Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard and has appeared Off-Broadway in Forbidden Broadway and Jeffrey.

For more information about Broadway Bears 8 or to make reservations for the event, call BC/EFA, (212) 840-0770, ext. 245. Visit the BC/EFA website at www.broadwaycares.org.