The Broadway Community Will Unite to Support Orlando
What the world needs now is love, sweet love.
It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.
After last weekend’s tragic shootings in Orlando, FL, the world was able to smile—if only temporarily—during Sunday night’s Tony Awards. They say on Broadway that “the show must go on,” and it did. Now, the Broadway community is uniting again, the best way it knows how.
(Courtesy Broadway for Orlando)
Some of Broadway’s brightest stars will come together to raise their voices—literally—to record a single supporting the victims of those wounded in Orlando. The act targeted the LGBTQ community—a community that’s embraced and beloved in theater.
“The Broadway community was so terribly shaken and devastated by the horrific tragedy in Orlando,” musical director Seth Rudetsky said in a statement. “On Monday, my husband James woke me up at 7:30 am and suggested we rally our friends and colleagues to do a ‘We Are the World’ type recording and raise money for the victims and their families. We started making calls, and suddenly we had tons of theater actors along with an orchestra and the services of a fully-staffed recording studio, all willing to donate their time and talent. Our community of artists has banded together as we always do to show we can end this cycle of violence and intolerance. Love will prevail!”
Enter Broadway for Orlando. Rudetsky has rallied some serious talent—including Lin-Manuel Miranda, Sara Bareilles, Kristen Bell, Matthew Broderick, Sarah Jessica Parker, Fran Drescher, Gloria Estefan, Sutton Foster, Whoopi Goldberg, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Sean Hayes, Megan Hilty, Carole King, Nathan Lane, Audra McDonald, Idina Menzel, Jessie Mueller, Chita Rivera, Bernadette Peters—and will conduct a 25-piece musical orchestra to recreate Burt Bacharach’s “What the World Needs Now Is Love.” All proceeds from the sale will benefit the LGBT Center of Central Florida.
The single will be available for download at BroadwayRecords.com on June 20 and on iTunes soon thereafter.
