It's unclear when Broadway will reopen again in earnest, but half a dozen stars are using their fame to raise money for people struggling during the coronavirus pandemic.
Grammy Award winner and actress Kathryn Gallagher is one of the famous competitors trying to raise the most money during this year's Red Bucket Match-Up campaign. She is facing off against Jason Alexander, Jordan Fisher, Eric McCormack, Aaron Tveit, and Jenna Ushkowitz to see who can raise the most for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS’ National Grants Program.
'Every year Broadway shows, twice a year, collect money in these red buckets after the show, and obviously, we are not in the theater, and we can’t do that. But, this is an incredible way [to fundraise],' she told Cheddar. The celebs participating in the challenge will leverage their fan bases on social media to raise money in the friendly competition.
The original idea behind the fundraiser was to provide support to members of the Broadway community that were suffering from HIV and AIDS but it has since morphed into an arm of support for people suffering almost any type of hardship in life.
Gilead Sciences will match every donated dollar up to $1 million.
The St. James Theatre was the first Broadway stage to reopen its doors for an invite-only, limited capacity crowd of frontline workers on Saturday. While there is no set timeline for fully reopening theaters, or guidelines explaining what that would look like, Gallaher is looking forward to taking the stage once again.
"The theater community is so resilient, and in times of hardship, people turn to art," she said.
"It's been very surreal in this last year to not be able to perform in the way that we’re all so used to. So, I think that when Broadway comes back, I think it’s just going to be so celebratory and healing."
