Elegies For Angels, Punks and Raging Queens is a stunning song cycle with music by Janet Hood and lyrics and additional text by Bill Russell. The work features songs and monologues inspired by the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt and Edgar Lee Masters‘ Spoon River Anthology. Each of the monologues is written from the perspective of characters who’ve died from AIDS and the songs represent the feelings of friends and family members dealing with the loss.

The piece was developed in the late 1980s  and was produced first at the Ohio Theatre in Soho in NYC in 1989, and then again Off-off-Broadway in Manhattan‘s East Village in February 1990. In 1992, it was produced at the King’s Head Theatre in London, where it played for several months. In June 1993, the production was transferred to  London’s West End, where it played until July of the same year.

Now streaming version, featuring 50 stars of stage and screen, will be presented on World AIDS Day, December 1 to benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

Currently set to perform are Brooks Ashmanskas Laura Bell Bundy, Robin de Jesús,  Stephanie Gibson, Lana Gordon, Alan H. Green,  Lena Hall, Jayne Houdyshell Famke Janssen, Jay Armstrong Johnson, Joaquina Kalukango, Tari Kelly, Nathan Lane , Norm Lewis , Alyse Alan Louis, Andrea Macasaet , Kevin McHale,  Jessie Mueller, Royina Patel, Anthony Rapp, Jeffery Roberson, Krysta Rodriguez Seth Rudetsky, JK Simmons, Robin Lord Taylor, Alysha Umphress, Anna Uzele, Marisha Wallace, and  Cynthia Nixon. More artists will be announced.

This  celebration of the lives lost to AIDS told in free-verse monologues with a blues, jazz, and rock score,  will stream beginning at 5 PM ET at BroadwayCares.org/Elegies. The show will be available through December 5.

P.S. Here’s a video of Irish/Italian actor ALAIN TERZOLI singing one of our favorite songs from  ‘Elegies’ called HEROES ALL AROUND