Father's Day is going to be a little different in 2002. Broadway Bares, the annual Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS burlesque, will play Roseland June 16 in a show entitled A Comic Strip.

Last year's 2001: A Strip Odyssey raised $340,000. Charles Busch, the Off-Broadway dragster who recently achieved Broadway playwriting acclaim with The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, his star Michele Lee, Rent's Idina Menzel, Rocky Horror Show's Tom Hewitt and Alice Ripley and downtown drag queen Edie hosted and performed at the X-rated event at Roseland Ballroom.

Choreographer Jerry Mitchell (The Rocky Horror Show, The Full Monty), who once had to dance nearly naked on a drum in The Will Rogers Follies, found himself inspired to take it all off to raise money for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and so Broadway Bares was born. The first year, he and seven other Will Rogers dancers raised $8,000 for BC/EFA.

150 dancers performed in various states of undress. Most other nights, they work it — with costumes on — in Aida, Chicago, Beauty and the Beast, The Phantom of the Opera, Follies, The Music Man, Fosse, Cabaret, The Lion King, The Producers, Contact, The Full Monty, Annie Get Your Gun, The Rocky Horror Show and Rent.

Tickets for the 9:30 PM show will be $45-$500, while at the midnight show, all tickets are $35. For information on Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, visit http://www.broadwaycares.org. — By Christine Ehren