As you may have seen all over my Facebook, we've been promoting this pretty hard for the past couple of weeks, but when Sunday came it was time for the final push. My first duty as a volunteer was to pass out flyers the morning of the event, which I did for about 5 hours. I was assigned to the Theater District because I'm loud, not shy, and not afraid to engage people - not to mention the extensive flyering/handbill passing out experience I got in college. Thank you, CAC. I think I talked to around 300 people about marriage equality and the rally. It was so encouraging and exciting for so many people to engage and be so supportive of our cause.
I also volunteered to be a marshall at the rally itself. My friends Louise, Alexa and I were assigned to the 45th Street block, and then I got pulled to do crowd control at the southwest corner of 45th and 6th, aka where every speaker/performer entered. It was also the busiest place where people coming to the rally were entering, so there was a lot of excitement. It was definitely not a glamorous job though, mostly consisting of crowd control - keeping people moving along the sidewalks and making sure the rally stayed peaceful and that the "pens" in the streets didn't get too crowded.
Many notable people were at the rally, including Governor Paterson and Mayor Bloomberg, among other speakers. There were also live performances from fantastic Broadway performers like the cast of HAIR, Cheyenne Jackson and Audra McDonald. Seeing the HAIR cast march down 45th was moving, and speaking to them as they left after the performance was wonderful. I love how tuned in and turned on they actually are. The entire experience was truly touching. I only got to catch snippets of speeches in between directing traffic and answering questions, but all of the people there were so inspirational.
After the rally, I scored a great seat on the right aisle of the orchestra for HAIR. I mean, come on, I had to be there. So I went, still decked in my Broadway Impact shirt and bright orange armband. It was beautiful, amazing, fantastic, everything else I can't imagine to say to describe the feeling. I cried a bit during "I Got Life" and was moved during "I Believe In Love." Oh, and random but awesome - Bryce RIFFED THE SHIZ out of his note in "3-5-0-0." It was phenomenal - as in, I spontaneously burst into tears because of HIS SINGING. And at the end, dancing on stage was even more exciting than usual just because there was so much joy.
We had a great time at the stage door, and the moment Gavin (who is one of the founders of Broadway Impact; I don't think I've mentioned that) came out, saw all of us supporters there and threw his arms up victoriously was just a culmination of the way today felt. Hugs and love were all around, and we all couldn't help but grin and be exuberant at being a part of history. As Gavin says, "It's going to happen, because we're right." As a side note, as we were standing there all talking, we heard the news that HAIR won the Drama Desk Award for Best Revival of a Musical, which was thoroughly exciting.
There are not enough words to describe how wonderful the day was, but there's my feeble attempt. Now it's time for everyone to start calling their Senator and urging him/her to vote for the marriage equality bill. We have until June 20 to get this passed, and I know we can do it.
Oh, and I thought it would be cool to include some press coverage of the rally, too.
A video from broadway.tv
A story from Democratic Underground
Photos of the rally from Playbill.com
Photos of the rally from BroadwayWorld.com
For more info on getting involved, visit the Broadway Impact Web site.
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