Tickets to the Nov. 30 benefit concert honoring the late Laurie Beechman will go on sale Monday, Nov. 2. Tickets will be sold only at the Walnut Street Theatre box office in Philadelphia, PA, and will range in price from $25 to $1,000.
Sam Harris (The Life ) will host the benefit. Also on board are Raymond Jarimillo McLeod (Jekyll & Hyde ), Melissa Hart, Kevin Gray (Phantom of the Opera ), Grant Prickett (La Cage Aux Folles ), Karen Mason (Sunset Boulevard ), Dodie Pettit (Phantom of the Opera ), Dan Schiff (Anything Goes ), Brad Little (Phantom of the Opera ), Davis Gaines (Phantom ), Betty Buckley (Gypsy ), Sean McDermott (Miss Saigon, Grease ), Andrea McArdle (Les Miserables, Cats ) and Laurie's sister Claudia Beechman.
The event may be of particular interest to Frank Wildhorn fans. The theatre will see a Jekyll & Hyde reunion of sorts, as Robert Evan, Linda Eder and Christiane Noll are all on the roster. Also, a partial reunion of the old Scarlet Pimpernel is a certainty. Two of the Broadway musical's original stars -- Douglas Sills and Christine Andreas -- have signed on for the benefit. Andreas left the musical in early October, just before the premiere of a new version of the Wildhorn show starring Sills, Rachel York and Rex Smith.
Rep. Jon D. Fox (R-PA), who represents the native Pennsylvania district of late actress-singer Beechman, is putting together the concert to honor the performer, who starred in such Broadway productions as Cats and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and died of ovarian cancer Mar. 8, 1998 at age 43. Proceeds from the concert will benefit Gilda's Club, an organization which offers help to cancer victims.
The concert may also be recorded for release as a CD. A spokesman at Fox's office said they were talking with Varese Sarabande about recording the event. "Now that the date has been established, we will work along with the exceptional staff of the beautiful Walnut Street Theatre to produce a concert that will befit a star of Laurie's magnitude," said Fox.
The Walnut Street Theatre is an apt location for the concert; in March 1998, Beechman herself performed at the theatre in a benefit concert to aid an actor-friend also suffering from cancer.
Earlier this year, Fox introduced two bills honoring Beechman in Congress. One bill calls for funding to the National Cancer Institute to increase by $50 million over five years. The extra money would be used for ovarian cancer education. The second measure would result in a special U.S. Treasury Department commemorative coin bearing Beechman's likeness. Money culled from the sale of the coin would go to Gilda's Club. No word yet on their chance of passage.
-- By Robert Simonson and David Lefkowitz
and Andrew Gans
