Broadway fund raiser canceled. One of the signature events of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS – “Broadway Bares” – was canceled as reported by Playbill.com. This occurred after the news broke out about a “fireside chat” meeting where the venue owners, Ian Reisner and Mati Weiderpass, met with 2016 US presidential aspirant Ted Cruz. With the Broadway fund raiser canceled, the agenda of everyone involved had been put into question.
The Broadway fund raiser was initially announced for May 10, 2015 to be held at 42West, owned by openly gay men Reisner and Weiderpass. Even the lineup was already announced with the following performers mentioned on a previous article also by Playbill.com. And they are currently included in the lineup of some Broadway musicals – Ryan Worsing of “Chicago”, Kei Tsuruharatani of “The King and I”, Kit Treece of “Radio City’s New York Spring Spectacular”, Jamal Story of “Motown The Musical”, Christopher Messina of “Jersery Boys”, Jaysin McCollum and Lawrence Alexander both from “The Lion King”, Mark MacKillop of the international tour cast of “West Side Story” and Yurei Echezareeta of “Aladdin”. Lesli Margherita of “Matilda” would have been the event’s host.
The meeting between 42West’s owners and Cruz got the public wondering about the latter agreeing to meet with the businessmen. What may have aggravated the decision in getting the Broadway fund raiser canceled was how Reisner quoted Ted Cruz in an interview with the NY Times.
Ted Cruz said ‘If one of my daughters was gay, I would love them just as much.
This in turn, contradicted the claims of a close aide of Ted Cruz about the senator. Cruz is still opposed to same sex marriage as told in the same NY Times article. The same article then quoted Ted Cruz himself about accusing Fortune 500 of having “the radical gay marriage agenda”. The controversial senator’s racy comments about the LGBT community and establishments that supported gay marriage were so strong. Nobody’s surprised about the Broadway fund raiser canceled as soon as the organizers could.
The media backlash pushed some LGBT activists to put up the “Boycott Fire Island Pines Establishment & OUT NYC Hotel” Facebook page. Without having to mention the Broadway fund raiser canceled due to this mishap, it then showed on the cover page the same photo uploaded on the NY Times articles of Weiderpass and Cruz on the said event.
This then pushed the gay owners to apologize for hosting the event with Cruz as reported by Business Insider. As this pushed getting the Broadway fund raiser canceled, Weiderpass posting his apology on his Facebook page, saying “Today I came to realize that I might have nullified my past efforts and accomplishments in just one week”. Reiser posted an apology on his Facebook page too, saying “I was ignorant, naive and much too quick in accepting a request to co-host a dinner with Cruze at my home”.
The day after the reported meeting dated April 23, 2015, Ted Cruz was quoted again, this time by Bloomberg, to be back on the anti-gay agenda. On April 24, 2015, Cruz proposed an amendment to the United States constitution establishing marriage only between a man and a woman. With an agenda to be the early favorite among evangelical voters, it further pushed presidential goals with a platform putting the LGBT community at the opposite spectrum of his platform. Hence getting the Broadway fund raiser canceled.
Still no updates on whether the Broadway fund raiser canceled would still push through. The LGBT media firestorm has yet to die down. But you can still donate to Broadway Cares by clicking here. In case new updates surface, it would be reported here at MusicalsOnline.com. In this vein we highly encourage you to subscribe to our newsletter to get the verified updates straight to your inbox. Follow us on social media too by liking our official Facebook page, Musicals Online, and following us on Twitter @musicalsnews. Thanks for reading.
