Eighteen performers, three band members, two producers and one stage manager, armed with microphones and character shoes, take the stage to fight AIDS.
Tonight and Saturday in De Neve Auditorium, UCLA’s ACT III Theatre Ensemble and the Office of Residential Life present “Bruins Care 2013,” a musical theater performance that raises money for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.
Performed by a majority of musical theater students and a few other talented Bruins, the Bruins Care cast has rehearsed since October, and its set list includes show tunes from performances that range from “Chicago” to Disney.
The entire production is student-choreographed,-funded and -produced, leading to numbers that are specifically designed with this year’s performers in mind.
For example, the group’s revamped version of “It’s a Hard Knock Life” from “Annie” even has some hip-hop choreography in it, one of the many reasons it is co-producer and second-year theater student Megan Fitzgerald’s favorite piece.
“They’ve put so much creativity into (it) and really made it their own,” Fitzgerald said. “It will definitely shock the audiences.”
Co-producer, performer and fourth-year musical theater student Vika Stubblebine said she agreed, adding that she thought it was the most inventive and most encompassing of what Bruins Care is about.
“You’ve got your traditional ‘Annie,’ and it goes to the rap, and normally that rap is really offensive and degrading,” Stubblebine said. “But we changed it to be about what we care about, which is fighting AIDS and raising money and having a really good time doing it.”
Some of the other songs in the set list include “Cell Block Tango” from “Chicago,” “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” from “Mulan,” and “Live in Living Color” from “Catch Me if you Can.”
For second-year musical theater student Austin Vaziri, though, shedding light on the AIDS epidemic and raising money are as important as the performances themselves.
“One of the big reasons I joined was because of the cause,” Vaziri said.
“Just having the opportunity to kind of persevere for the sake of the objective of this one event with all of my friends and work towards this common goal.”
The performance is free for all to come and support, but donations are encouraged. All of the proceeds go toward finding a cure for AIDS.
“I think you should come if you enjoy watching performances and if you want to see a bunch of your UCLA peers singing and dancing,” Vaziri said. “We’re all humans on this earth and at the end of the day it’s going to be a lot of fun.”
After the 1980s, theatrical works like Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America” aimed to inform the the public about AIDS.
Stubblebine said connections like this between theater communities and AIDS helped her feel inspired to participate in and produce Bruins Care.
“Theater isn’t about jazz hands and sparkles,” Stubblebine said. “It’s about reflecting humanity and making people think and making a change for the better.”
Email Pravetz at epravetz@media.ucla.edu