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  George Gershwin Alone Web site Hershey Felder played the title character in the one-man show "George Gershwin Alone" on Broadway.

By Mary Williams

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

Over 30 Broadway and television actors will perform at the Wadsworth Theatre tonight, and for once the tickets are free and the audience is invited to participate by singing along.

Of course, like many free-of-charge events lately, donations from the show, called “A Sing-In for America,” are being accepted for the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund, and the show is expected to benefit the audience as well.

“We’re alive, we’re well, and life must go on. It’s fun, it’s about unity, it’s about getting out of the house,” said Hershey Felder, who came up with the idea for a sing-along fund-raiser.

“It’s about being in the theater and seeing that it can be safe. It’s about creating a feeling that this kind of thing does happen in the world and it’s unbelievably tragic, but for those of us left behind we must go on and we must fight terrorism, not just with guns and government – we need to fight terrorism by not letting it beat us,” he continued.

Felder decided to organize the event after a successful experiment during his run in the one-man show “George Gershwin Alone” last season on Broadway.

Noticing that the audience often seemed to want to sing along with the Gershwin songs, he encouraged the audience to stay after the show and sing while he played piano.

“People don’t want to just see a performance, they want to take part. And it’s important to see performances that are incredible and masterful, but it’s also important to encourage people to sing,” Felder said.

When the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked, he decided to turn this idea into a fund-raiser for the victim’s families. It quickly grew from a small concert to a massive show that includes four actors who starred in Broadway productions last season – Felder, James Barbour (“Beauty and the Beast,” “Jane Eyre”), Linda Purl (“Tom Sawyer”) and John Ritter (“The Dinner Party”), who is acting as one of the event’s MCs.

“Everyone was completely eager and right away said, ‘Yes.’ No one had a hesitation,” said Kay Cole, one of the organizers who works as a Broadway director and choreographer and who has also starred in “A Chorus Line.”

Barbour, another of the organizers, said that his work in the fund-raiser was his natural reaction to crisis.

“After about a 24-hour period, I said, ‘Okay, now what do we do? We got to keep going.’ And that’s how I am as a human being. I cannot sit idle, and for me to let emotions like that take over what’s going on in my body is unacceptable, because for me that handcuffs us as a human spirit,” Barbour said.

In addition to coordinating the performers, the event’s organizers had to arrange for a theater, equipment and food to be donated to the show. By working with friends and associates, they were able to put together the entire production without any expenditures.

“Richard Willis (the co-operator of the Wadsworth Theatre) and I have produced before, so we have a lot of friends,” Felder said. “When you’ve produced theater, and thank goodness in my case it’s been successful, you can call upon friends to help you. Not to mention the fact that anybody we called was just thrilled to donate.”

Although the purpose of the event is to raise funds for victims of terrorism, the mood of the performances should be upbeat and hopeful, according to Cole.

“I’m hoping that it will be celebratory for the amazing heroes that are doing astonishing work in New York, but always that will be laced with a bit of sadness,” said Cole.

“I think like anything there will be a few tears, and a few laughs, and much cheering and joy at being able to contribute,” she added.

With many of these actors living and working in New York, the events of Sept. 11 had a highly personal impact that encouraged them to contribute to this fund-raiser.

“I’m a New Yorker and I had such sadness at the tragedy, and also a bit of guilt, not being there and not being able to run down to ground zero and help and volunteer, and in my small way this is the way I can contribute,” said Cole.

Barbour was encouraged to help out by the reaction of New Yorkers to the tragedies.

“I’ve lost five people to the tragedy now, and of course I’ll be thinking about them during various parts of the show,” said Barbour. “One of the guys was a firefighter ... I’ll also be thinking about what he was doing and why he was doing what he was doing. And to me that’s a sense of hope. Here’s a guy that ran into a crumbling building to save lives.”

By allowing both performers and the audience to express their sense of hope, contribute and have fun by singing along to showtunes, the organizers hope that the show has a unifying and uplifting quality.

“Everyone has a voice, and some are not beautiful and some are beautiful, but the important thing is that you get even 100 people in a room, or 200, or 500 – here there will be 1,400 people in a room singing together,” said Felder. “And that’s remarkable.”

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