The Broadway community saw the national event as an opportunity to show its support. Upon hearing of the National Equality March, the cast of Hair canceled its Sunday matinee in order to march on Washington. Broadway Impact, a community of Broadway professionals united by the fight for LGBT rights (created by Hair cast member, Gavin Creel) organized a fleet of buses to take over 1,000 New Yorkers to Washington, D.C. for the march, free of charge.
In addition to the cast of Hair, the march attracted such theatre luminaries as Cynthia Nixon, Kristin Chenoweth, Marc Kudisch, Steven Schwartz, and Audra MacDonald. The rally featured rousing speeches from Nixon, who announced her engagement to her girlfriend earlier this year, lesbian poet StaceyAnn Chin, and the openly gay screenwriter of Milk, Dustin Lance Black. The march also offered something audiences could never see on Broadway: With the Capitol Building behind them and the Washington Monument in the distance, the cast of Hair performed a rallying cry rendition of "Let the Sun Shine In" with a 200,000 strong chorus of marchers.
Also in attendance was pop star, Lady Gaga, who made an appropriately dramatic impression donning sunglasses, a crisp white shirt and black suspenders. The diminutive star-standing on a plastic crate in order to reach the microphone-said, "Obama, I know that you're listening," then screamed, "ARE YOU LISTENING?!?"
The National Equality March was full of inspirational speeches, songs, and stories, but the most moving part of the day may have occurred in silence. As thousands of people gathered on that cloudless, Sunday afternoon to march with their friends, families and signs in hand, they looked up to find a rainbow arching over the city of Washington, D.C. Strangers embraced and tears flowed easily as the crowd started the march towards their nation's capitol.
