Monday, November 24, 1997
The casts of ‘Ragtime,’ ‘Rent’ and ‘The Phantom of the Opera’
come together for a concert benefitting area AIDS programsBy Cheryl
Klein
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
"To people living with, living with, living with/not dying from
disease!"
"Rent" sings it loud and clear. Broadway’s been saying it for
years. And now the theatrical voice that fights AIDS is about to
triple in size.
When veteran benefit coordinator Rina Saltzman realized that
three of musical theater’s most celebrated works were playing
simultaneously in Los Angeles, she saw the potential power of
combining the casts into one epic production.
So on World AIDS Day, Dec. 1, the ensembles of "Rent," "Ragtime"
and "The Phantom of the Opera" will gather at the Schubert Theatre
for the appropriately titled "When Casts Collide."
Proceeds from the concert will go towards Broadway Cares/Equity
Fights AIDS, Project Angel Food, the Serra Project and HEAL, the
last three being Los Angeles-based charities.
While the event is being publicized as a once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity on the West Coast, Saltzman points out, "We do it in
New York all the time."
She describes two staple fund-raisers for Broadway Cares, the
Easter Bonnet Competition in April and the December battle to be
"Gypsy of the Year." Both programs challenge cast members to get
creative in terms of money-raising methods. Some perform skits;
others sell posters or auction off chances to appear on stage.
"On ‘Cats,’ which I did for three years, we’d go into the
audience and take Polaroids of kids with the cats. At $10 a pop,
you can raise $2,000 a night doing that. At intermission!" Saltzman
says.
The approach to "When Casts Collide" is somewhat simpler, but
perhaps more dynamic. For legal reasons, the companies can’t
perform songs from any of the three shows, so they opted to sing
selections from musicals of their respective time periods. The
sweeping expanse of time covered between "Phantom" (which takes
place in 1865) and "Rent" (the 1990s) helped director Alyson Reed
sculpt a theme for the evening.
"We thought it would be great fun to have an evening where we
all sort of tag-team with each other’s style of shows," Reed says.
"We had the sort of operatic sounds of ‘Phantom’ with the hip,
modern sound of ‘Rent.’ And the great thing is because these people
are professionals, they can obviously sing both."
Thus the Bohemian boys and girls of "Rent" will relive old-time
musical theater with selections from "Ain’t Misbehavin’" and the
typically hoop skirt and top hat-clad stars of "Ragtime" will bust
out some of the more risque numbers from "Hair," a musical
typically likened to "Rent" for its youthful, daring and social
conscience.
If the featured songs from "Godspell," "Once on This Island,"
"Candide," and "The Wiz" have something in common, it is the
feeling of combined optimism and awareness that is crucial to
fighting AIDS.
"I grew up in the ’70s where social conscience was like, if you
didn’t have one, you were branded," Saltzman recalls. But "benefits
don’t normally attract students, in all honesty."
Both Saltzman and Reed hope that the show’s $35 starting ticket
price will help remedy this. Though tickets for charity events can
easily run into the triple digits, "When Casts Collide" has made a
serious commitment to rallying Angelenos around the cause.
Project Angel Food delivers meals to homebound men, women and
children with AIDS throughout Los Angeles. The organization first
attracted Reed when she was on tour with "A Few Good Men" at the
Wilshire Theatre. On her days off, she performed a club act,
promising her earnings to the program.
"Unfortunately, when the club was supposed to send me a check,
they didn’t tell me that they knew they were going bankrupt before
I did my act," Reed says. "I was furious and embarrassed and I
called Project Angel Food. I felt really horrible, but they
couldn’t have been more lovely about it."
Reed has arguably more than made up for that incident, with
enough funds to benefit other charities as well. The Serra Project
runs four homes for people with HIV and AIDS in Los Angeles and
Ventura Counties. And HEAL is a non-profit education network which
frequently brings together experts in the field and provides
information about alternative AIDS care. It also has the
distinction of not accepting any money from the pharmaceutical
industry or the government.
"They look for alternative means of keeping healthy. Not
necessarily going immediately to invasive procedures or procedures
that would require you to take toxic chemicals," Saltzman
explains.
All the beneficiaries of "When Casts Collide" leave the medical,
research-oriented side of the disease to other organizations,
concentrating instead on helping people who have already been
diagnosed to cope both physically and emotionally.
And certainly the theatrical community has been coping longer
than many. In an industry with both money and media access, drawing
attention to the disease has been a tradition of theatrical
functions since the ’80s.
"It was very, very rampant in the arts community," Saltzman
says. "It tended to be more public because we are more public."
Saltzman admits, "I’ve lost more people than I can feasibly even
count anymore."
Her experience may not be as unusual as one would like to think
which perhaps explains why already overworked actors were more than
willing to lend their talents to one more project.
"That eight-shows-a-week thing is tough," Reed says. "Everybody
is rehearsing on their days off and in between shows and they have
just great attitudes about giving their time."
"We all bring a sense of caring, a sense of community theater,"
Saltzman adds. "People, just by their nature, by what they do, tend
to have a great sense of community because it’s a collaborative
art."
So maybe everyone knows that Broadway Cares. But "When Casts
Collide" affirms that so do the Pantages, the Ahmanson and the
Schubert.
THEATER: Performers from "Ragtime," "Rent" and "The Phantom of
the Opera" will perform at "When Casts Collide" Dec. 1 at the
Schubert Theatre. Tickets range from $35 to $250. For information,
call 800-447-7400.
BROADWAY L.A.
The Phantom of the Opera serenades his love, Christine Daae.
Above, the cast of "Ragtime," performs the title song. Below,
the "Rent" cast harmonizes during the show’s finale.