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Ben Houghton and Mary Page Nance backstage at the first ever Broadway's Babies fundraiser at The Cutting Room in New York (Photo courtesy Mary Page Nance)
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Ben Houghton at a New York performance of Broadway's Babies, held at Le Poisson Rouge (Photo by Joshua Silk)
Get ready to be entertained, and for a good cause. The bench, as is said for other occasions, is deep for this one-night-only event, 8 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 28, on the Willow Lawn stage of the Virginia Repertory Theatre. The concert, plus a silent auction beginning at 7 p.m., is for Broadway's Babies, an organization that funds teaching artists to serve needy communities in Haiti, Dominican Republic, South Africa, India and in New York City here in America.
The effort is helmed by former-Richmonder-turned-New Yorker, actor, dancer and pianist Ben Houghton, who co-founded the charity with Broadway vocal coach, performer and multi-instrumentalist Katy Pfaffl.
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The concert features the accomplished talents of Houghton, actor/singer Desirée Roots, Debra Wagoner (“Toxic Avenger”), Audra Honaker (director, “Akeelah and the Bee”), actor and singer-songwriter Ali Thibodeau, Josh Marin (“In the Heights”), multi-hyphenate Jason Marks (“1776”), Scott Wichmann (“1776,” “Shakespeare in Love”), students from the School of the Performing Arts in the Richmond Community (SPARC), and The Richmond Dance Center — plus Mary Page Nance, who made the leap from Richmond to Broadway and recently performed in “Finding Neverland” and “Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812.”
Any one of these performers could dominate a stage for an evening — putting them together in one place will make for a powerful night.
This is Houghton and Nance’s third Richmond effort to gain recognition for the charity. Nance has in past years traveled to Haiti through St. James Episcopal Church for aid work, and during the past two years, she and Houghton performed in the lobby space of VirginiaRep/Willow Lawn specifically for charitable undertakings there. Back then, she’d not yet trod the boards of Broadway. That’s all changed.
Nance says, “I feel greater confidence in bringing more people to see the show. We actually wanted to get the Richmond community involved instead of just using the space. And we have a great group of performers.”
Houghton, after a few years as a pianist for the American Ballet Theatre in New York, got involved with Artists Striving to End Poverty (ASTEP).
Though ASTEP, he taught music at a school near Bangalore, India, for four months to children living in poverty. Houghton explains, “The object is to break that cycle, put the arts in their lives, and put them on their way to education and jobs so they can come home and improve their part of the world.” His ASTEP experience inspired Broadway’s Babies. Now there are expanded programs in India but also a homeless center program in New York City’s Bronx. “We’re working in public schools in Harlem, and we lead choir and violin classes,” Houghton says.
The Oct. 28 event is specifically aimed toward supporting those working in the arts in Haiti.
“We can’t eradicate hunger and poverty,” Houghton says. “What we can do is spend 30 minutes a day with a young person in India, or in Harlem, and put a guitar in their hands, and show them the beauty in that. And that’s what I can focus on. What we hope to develop in these kids is their creative abilities that they can take into whatever employment field they choose.”
Nance knows what it’s like to belt the same tune for days and weeks in a long-running show, as do all the entertainers in this production. “We just want to give these people an opportunity to sing a piece they don’t perform every night,” Nance says. In addition, there’ll be videos to show where the funds raised are going.
The show will, Nance says, serve up “a great big bowl of joy.” And these days, who couldn’t use a heaping helping of that?
The Broadway's Babies benefit is Saturday, Oct. 28, at 8 p.m. (with a silent auction beginning at 7 p.m.) at the Virginia Repertory Theatre at Willow Lawn.
