Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner will serve as honorary chair of the event with NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman, Nina Lannan and Jordan Roth as co-chairs.
Slated to join Kushner are Tony winners LaChanze (The Color Purple), Harriet Harris (Thoroughly Modern Millie) and Dennis O'Hare (Take Me Out, Assassins) as well as Daphne Rubin-Vega (Rent, Jack Goes Boating), Celia Keenan-Bolger (Spelling Bee, Les Miserables), Julia Murney (Wicked), Jenn Collela (High Fidelity), Julie Halston (Gypsy, Twentieth Century), Todd Buonopane (Spelling Bee), the cast of [title of show] (Hunter Bell, Jeff Bowen, Heidi Blickenstaff and Susan Blackwell), Academy Award winner Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice (Jersey Boys), and founding performers Liana Stampur and Erich Bergen (Jersey Boys National Tour).
Seth Rudetsky (Seth's Broadway Chatterbox) will be musical director, and Daniel Goldstein (Paper Mill's Godspell, But I’m a Cheerleader: The Musical) will direct.
The New York Civil Liberties Union has been at the forefront of challenges to recent abuses of power, from torture to government secrecy to spying on innocent Americans. The NYCLU is also currently working to oppose overly aggressive policing in city public schools, abusive military recruitment tactics, as well as training thousands of peer educators through the Teen Health Initiative to understand and advocate for their right to confidential reproductive health care.
As part of that campaign, the organization is evaluating scores of entries — poetry, artwork, music and essays — that young people have submitted to the organization's annual Student Expression contest, about these and other issues. The winning entries will be read and/or performed by special guests throughout the performance. The July 16 concert begins at 7:30 PM at The Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, located at 566 LaGuardia Place, Washington Square South.
Tickets for Broadway Stands Up for Freedom! are $60, and priority seats sell for $100. Sponsorship packages start at $250. There are also $12 discount tickets for students and senior citizens. To purchase tickets, visit www.nyclu.org or call Ticket Central at (212) 279-4200 (www.ticketcentral.org).
