Bare-Chested Journey's End Actors Spoof Slow Sales and Take Top Honors at Benefit


By Mary Romano


Guys wearing only the bottom half of old military uniforms and singing Four Seasons tunes took the top prize at the annual Easter Bonnet Competition yesterday and helped battle AIDS.



The men from Journey's End (left to right: Stark Sands, John Ahlin (wearing Journey's End's "Easter Bonnet"), Justin Blanchard, and John Behlmann) get ready to make the Easter Bonnet hop.


Cast members of Broadway and Off-Broadway shows mount the two-performance revue every year as part of a funding drive for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids. The organization said it raised $3.34 million after cast members from 60 Broadway, Off- Broadway and national touring companies asked audiences for donations during the six-week drive. The contest was the culmination of the fundraiser.


Yesterday's Bonnet winners at Manhattan's Minskoff Theater were actors from the World War I play Journey's End. They danced bare-chested and sang tweaked lyrics to "Big Girls Don't Cry" and "Oh What a Night" in a spoof titled "Journey's End: The Underdogs of War." The serious drama has great reviews but a lean box office. "No razzle-dazzle and no audience," one cast member told the audience. "We're playing to 3 percent capacity. There's 11 of us and 11 of them." The "Big Girls Don't Cry" refrain became "Straight Plays Don't Sell."



Among the shows with cast members appearing were: The Lion King, Company, Hairspray, Spamalot, and The Phantom of the Opera. Cast and crews fashioned elaborate headpieces as part of the competition. The Journey's End bonnet worn by John Ahlin was an enormous bullet sticking through a World War I helmet.


Touch of Glitz


Perhaps adding a little glitz to a show about a group of British soldiers in the trenches getting ready to face their enemy would help ticket sales, Ahlin said today in a telephone interview. "We were self-deprecating," Ahlin said. "Audiences go nuts for the performance, but there aren't enough of them. We are humble in our appeal."


    


Cast members (above left, left to right) Stark Sands, Kieran Campion, Justin Blanchard, and John Behlmann did the honors as shirtless soldiers with spangled suspenders. Cast mate Nick Berg Barnes wore tights while Hugh Dancy appeared in a towel. "It wasn't even until a day or so before the show that someone mentioned bare-chested," Ahlin said. "They all grumbled," saying "I haven't been to the gym."



Vanessa Redgrave, now in The Year of Magical Thinking and David Hyde Pierce, starring in Curtains announced the bonnet contest winners and the amounts raised. The national touring company of Jersey Boys in San Francisco raised the most money among individual shows with $236,844.


Excerpted from Mary Romano writing for bloomberg.net.