Clay Performs at Broadway Cares Show in NYC

Clay performed last night at the 22nd Annual Easter Bonnet Competition– an event for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. The show was held at Minskoff Theater in New York City. The photos in this post show Clay arriving at the event with fellow Spamalot star, Hannah Waddingham.

The CH's playbiller reports:

there is some talk about a DVD for sale on the broadway boards. I will try and keep track to find out about it.

Easter Bonnet Recap

Well, as you all know Clay's voice was like buh-tah today. He and Hannah were like angels singing their voices meshed so wonderfully and they didn't even flinch as the nun skated right by their faces. There were two knights in attendance to help lift the giant vase/grail unto the lovely blue dressed woman (usually seen naughty in tights). There was audience laughter through out their singing, but not a smirk was cracked. There was a large round of applause when they finished. And everyone took a bow. As the stage went dark, the intro-er said, "too bad they can't sing. My ears hurt now." Monday she said that too bad Hannah can't sing.

But lets talk off topic on the rest of the show to get perspective.
Reality contestants on Broadway were the topic du jour.
The opening scene was Project Broadway - Yes, we started with a fake sister of Heidi Klum and a fake Tim Gunn, introducing the contestants - Tina Tequila, Miss New York and Patti LuPone. When the others objected she was not a reality star, "tim" said, no, she was a real star and they needed someone with talent in this show. Then he introduced the judges - Michael Coors, Nina Garcia and special guest judge Paula Abdul, who came out seal clapping and started to speak when promptly falling on her face. "Tim" said hta was a side effect of insomnia. I swear, I now know another group of people who are as aware of reality programs as I am. Normally, I have no one to share the crap I watch with. These people rock in reality garbage knowledge! Then they did some dances, designed bonnets that were rejected, so "Tim" brought out professionals - real contestants from Project Runway - that woman with the rosettes (who wanted to add rosettes to all the hats), Chris from this season (didn't realize he was an award winning professional Broadway costume designer), Molan, and the one funny overtly stereotypical Gay guy from 2006. Then it kind of died out.

August Osage County One two punch - odd scenes with weird lessons - ick.

Mary Poppins - Up a lazy river - girl guy dance to recorded music. Nice

Naked Boys Singing - Off Broadway Lament - fantastic take off singing about working brunch to support himself, so he can appear off off Broadway. Who knew some guys would take off their pants and moon us on the buns buns buns part.

Sunday in the Park With George - understudies - Intro ed with a talk about how understudies need to get a chance, then have a dramatic scene with the to little girls from the show playing a man and a pregnant woman. Fantastic and how could the kids lose - won for best skit.

Money Python's Spamalot - Hannah and Clay and Pam Remler ( naughty under wear girl) and Tony Holds and Andrew Fitch and the uncredited skating nun! So, beautiful - must get DVD just forthis part.

Spring Awakening - there are much worse things I can do - another take off on Grease - auditioning the regular Spring Awakening kids for roles in grease - let's just say overtly sexual and riotous.

Momix dancer - some people loved her, I was eh

Mamma Mia 2.0 - Mamma Mia was tired of not winning awards, so they thought they would try and selll themselves to an off channel, like legally Blonde did to MTV - so they did the Mamma Mia on BET, the mamma mia on a tela novela, etc.

Bonnets from the road - just a display of bonnets made by touring companies.

The lion King - true colors - this was amazing. It starts out with the legally blonde crew doing a number from their show and two girls talking about how th would should see it as they do and a magical leprechaun change things and suddenly it is legally black and the songs are changed to R&B and gospel

Legally Blonde/Wicked - Feedback - They did a complex dance - I like dance, was board.

Passing strange - passing strangest - another great scene - as two people are discussing the impossibility of the show passing strange, dancers crawl on stage and suddenly attack one of the men and WHOA - suddenly he arises in a red jacket and they start dancing to thriller with more pertinent words.

Hairspray - Bridge over troubled water - This was a bit different, a yuong girl went on stage to talk about her father contracting aides when she was young, but supporting her in the arts and how proud he would be to see her on Broadway stage - then the cast did a nice version of Bridge over Troubled Water

In the Heights - Un Dia Mas - hard to describe this, it was complexly choreographed and sung

Gypsy - little lamb - another riot - it is the young girls birthday in gypsy and she is getting a present - a lamb puppet - a large lamb puppet - as it is walked on stage. The man controlling it starts singing - I am what I am - and eventually everyone on stage (30 people?) have sock puppet lambs and switched to leiderhosen and start tap-dancing - their bonnet was a woman with a charcoal grill on her head and a stuffed lamb being turned on a rotisserie

Rent - here is where all the old and new crew of rent get together on the stage to sing

Doris Eaton Travis - Swinging in the Rain - 104 year old Follies girl goes out on stage and speaks eloquently and starts dancing with her ex cook, new dance partner. She decided to teach him to dance when she was 94 and saw him dancing in the kitchen. Amazing, jealous of her genes.

Finale Help is on the way - Anika Noni Rose - yesterday she said she decided to perform despite having an asthma attack and if a video showed up on you tube, it better state she had an asthma attack!

In between there were speakers, lots of jibes at reality contestants, one directed specifically at Constantine - for reasons unknown, but when the stars of Grease came out to a lukewarm welcome, it became obvious who the jibes were directed at. These are the winners of "the one that you want" and they have not been getting great reviews. At one point though, they were talking about being the butt of a lot of the jokes that night when the guy says, but we know you love us - which was met with dead silence.

Nathan Lane came out earlier to introduce the judges and one of the judges had listed as president of the Judy Garland fan club - well, he said he could not resist it lead to too many jokes and he started realling them off - like "and you say your parents never knew?" I know I can't reproduce it but he had people rolling on the floor.

Finally the awards came out. I forget what they said before Spamalot, but it seemed to indicate they were impressed with the money raised. Clay and Hannah came from behind the stage, the others came from the audience to a nice round of applause. When Rent won, Clay was happy for them. It was a good day for Clay and for me watching them.

... and another report from the CH's mlk973:

Reporting in for flyinpenguin and fantotheend and myself now that we are back home. We had a great day in NYC today. We read about the EB this morning and called the Minskoff theater and found out that there were still mezzanine tickets available. We ran around, got ready, and headed to the city early to get to the boxoffice by 12:30. We managed to get seats in the center mezzanine row H but with binoculars got some pretty good views. For $20 we got a 3 hour show (no intermission) filled with an assortment of skits, songs, and jokes.

To start with the opening speaker said that it was amazing that reality tv stars could be made into broadway stars overnight. That got a big chuckle from the audience.

Clay and Hannah were fabulous as you already know. He looked handsome and classy. They did a straight rendition of The Prayer with the comic relief of the dancing and skating nun. Of course we barely saw the nun as we watched that gorgeous couple through our binoculars. Clay gazed at Hannah throughout the song. It was powerful and they seemed evenly matched. When we saw Hannah at the stage door after tonight's Spamalot she commented that she enjoyed singing in her real voice rather than her show voice. She has beautiful tone and power. She looked beautiful and while tall she did not overshadow Clay in anyway. While some of the other presentations went for shock value and bawdiness, Clay and Hannah stood out as pure class.

Of course, we would not have objected if Clay had decided to perform with the "Naked Boys" even though they only showed their naked rear ends (asses for those who need a more graphic description). That would have been a nice treat but was not to be.

After the show we saw Clay and Hannah leave with Jermone and head back to the Shubert just around the corner. Clay had his arm around Hannah in a protective and gentlemanly way as they made their way through the crowd.

The Spam show tonight was excellent (but you knew it would be). We got Clay smelling the flowers on his spear but no braiding. Anthony Holds was in for Bevidere and was quite good. Knights of Ni did the "Baby Got Back" song.

Smallish crowd of about 50-60 at the stage door when Clay came out and seemed happy and looked mighty fine. We got autographs from Tom, David Hibbard, Rick, and Hannah. All were really friendly and happy to stop and chat. Hannah confirmed that June 15 is her last show.

Several websites ran photos from the event:

• Playbill
• Broadway Stars
• People Magazine
• Ecorazzi - "As always, the event was star-packed with famous faces like Megan Mullaly, Nathan Lane, Laurie Metcalf, David Hyde Pearce and the dude with the biggest (and arguably craziest) fans I’ve ever seen, Clay Aiken."
• Just Jared -

  Clay Aiken and Spamalot’s Hannah Waddingham depart from the 22nd Annual Easter Bonnet Competition, held on Tuesday at the Minskoff Theatre in New York City.
  
  It was announced that over $3.7 million had been raised for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.
  
  In his new album On My Way Here, Clay has a track called ‘The Real Me’ which was written by Natalie Grant, a singer-songwriter in the area of contemporary Christian music.

• TheaterMania -

  The two-day Broadway spectacular featured the companies of more than 15 Broadway, Off-Broadway, and touring productions singing, dancing, and donning original Easter bonnets. Among the notable performers who participated in their companies' skits were Clay Aiken, Hannah Waddingham, Laura Benanti, Anthony Rapp, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Priscilla Lopez, and Daniel Breaker.