Julia Cochrane drove for four hours, to New York from Boston, so she could spend last Saturday night immersed in all things Broadway. But not in Manhattan.
Instead, she headed to Huntington, Long Island. There, over 100 people packed into Spotlight at the Paramount, a small bar attached to a concert hall, for a touring dance party called Broadway Rave, at which theater kids turned theater adults dance and sing onstage in between shots of tequila.
“People who love this, they just want to come together,” said Cochrane, 22, who attended with her friend Hannah Opisso, 23, a Long Island resident who learned about the dance party via Instagram. “It’s like you’re basically on a Broadway stage, with new friends.”
Cochrane and Opisso met as students at the State University of New York, Plattsburgh, where Broadway cast albums were their pregame music of choice. Last weekend, Broadway musicals brought them together again, and at one point they took the stage to sing “Meet the Plastics” from the “Mean Girls” musical.
Attendees don’t have microphones — this isn’t karaoke — but they are encouraged to rush the stage to sing and dance when their favorite songs come on. And the term “rave” is a misnomer: The playlist is mostly uncut cast album material — though last weekend those theater fans may have caught the remix flair at the beginning of “Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats.” Other songs that night included “Out Tonight” (“Rent”), “Popular” (“Wicked”), “Sincerely Me” (“Dear Evan Hansen”) and a few tracks from “Hamilton,” including “The Schuyler Sisters” and “Wait for It.”
“You have a lot of introverted people that would never want to be in front of a stage,” said Ethan Maccoby, a co-founder of Burwood Media, the company that presents Broadway Rave. At these events, “you see these folks get onstage and have the courage to be up there.”
Maccoby’s company, which he created as a side hustle with his childhood friend Alex Badanes, started with the recurring D.J. set Emo Night Brooklyn before growing to include Broadway- and disco-themed nights. Maccoby said Broadway Rave, which has been running for two years, has the most passionate audience of the three.
That was in evidence on Saturday as some audience members showed up in costumes. The night’s D.J., Jay C. Ellis, a former cast member of the “Freestyle Love Supreme” tour and in the Las Vegas residency, wore a bucket hat with cat ears and a tail.
But no other get-up was as attention-grabbing as the one worn by Nathaniel Lopez, 33, who dressed as Seymour from “Little Shop of Horrors,” complete with a papier-mâché puppet Audrey II that he made for an earlier Broadway Rave in New York City.
When that musical’s “Grow for Me” played, Lopez, a Huntington resident, took center stage, extending a green fabric-clad arm through the potted plant and contorting around the puppet’s “growth.”
“It’s a good way to connect with people,” he said.
Percy Benedick, who had previously attended a Shrek-themed Rave, persuaded Lillian Bo to come to Huntington for Broadway Rave from Hofstra University, where the two friends, both 21, are undergraduates and roommates.
Benedick dressed as Audrey II from “Little Shop,” leaning on a vine motif for a more inspired-by costume than his papier-mâché peer. Bo dressed as Orpheus from “Hadestown” in overalls, with a red handkerchief tied around her neck.
“The reason I put off going to raves is that it’s so loud, it’s a bunch of people I don’t know, and music I probably won’t like,” Bo said. “But Broadway, I do know.”
Kimberly Phyfe, 43, of Setauket, was going to dress up as Aaron Burr from “Hamilton,” but scrapped those plans in the days before the event after hearing the song “She Used to Be Mine” from “Waitress.” She then pulled together a waitress costume so she could go as Jenna, the “Waitress” protagonist.
Phyfe, who said she previously worked in theater before taking a day job with stable income, described Broadway Rave as a way back to a theater community so many lose when they leave the profession.
“To be able to put this on for one night, and sing our favorite songs, and cheer for each other and be best friends with total strangers, even if it’s in the darkness of a night club for two hours,” she said. “What an amazing opportunity.”
People across the country are asking for that opportunity directly. Broadway Rave adds cities to its schedule by request, and recent stops include Salt Lake City; Indianapolis; Boise, Idaho; Las Vegas; London; and Belfast in Northern Ireland, Maccoby said.
Shows have sold out in Seattle, Phoenix and Orlando, Fla. (though many stops are at smaller venues, with an attendance cap of 200 or 300 people). The largest iteration was in Washington, with about 1,000 people.
It isn’t a true touring show, though, and there are local D.J.’s for each event. The same night as the Huntington show, Broadway ravers were welcomed in Santa Cruz, Calif.; Pensacola, Fla; and Nashville.
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