The fundraising CD, which benefits Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, is now in stores. The Dec. 11 event — beginning at 5 PM — will feature performances from Wicked's Idina Menzel, Avenue Q's John Tartaglia, The Lion King's Thom Christopher Warren as well as cast members from Chicago and The Producers. Broadway Cares Executive Director Tim Viola will host the evening, which will also feature a raffle of autographed memorabilia signed by Hugh Jackman, Antonio Banderas and Jon Secada.
The Times Square Virgin Megastore is located in Manhattan at 1540 Broadway at 45th Street.
"Carols for a Cure" is available in select stores as well as on-line at www.broadwaycares.org.
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Presented by Rock-It Science records, the annual CD boasts some of Broadway's greatest voices singing an eclectic array of holiday music. The two-CD set, "Carols for a Cure: Volume V," includes Hugh Jackman and the cast of The Boy From Oz singing "Wrapped Up Nice," Idina Menzel and her Wicked castmates singing "I Saw Three Ships," Tony Award winner Harvey Fierstein and the Hairspray company singing "Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel," American Idol's Frenchie Davis and the Rent cast singing "O Holy Night" and Antonio Banderas and the recent Nine company singing "Los Peces en El Rio (The Fish in the River)." Lynn Pinto — an operatically trained singer who made her Broadway debut in the Rebecca Luker revival of The Sound of Music — produced the annual fundraiser. Pinto had previously explained the genesis of Rock It Records to Playbill On-Line. "We started by putting together a CD of the nuns of The Sound of Music," said the performer-producer. "It started as a gift for our families for Christmas; then I started doing research into duplicating CDs, and we were able to sell them as a fundraiser [for BC/EFA]. That was our first release for Broadway Cares. We just sold it at the theatres, and it was really successful. Broadway Cares has been very happy with [the annual recordings], and we have a blast doing them, and it's become, six months out of the year, a full-time job."
