With a whirlwind of songs, skits and dances created by Broadway’s best, this year’s Red Bucket Follies delivered humor, heart and theater magic to the legendary New Amsterdam Theatre. The annual variety show, performed December 8 and 9, 2025, celebrated 55 Broadway, Off-Broadway and national touring companies that participated in the fall #RedBuckets fundraising for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

Red Bucket Follies and the six weeks of in-theater fundraising raised a record-shattering $7,344,304. That’s the highest total ever raised in a Broadway Cares fundraising season, flying past the previous record of $6.8 million just set in the spring.

The total was announced at the conclusion of Tuesday’s performance by special guests Kristin Chenoweth, Tom Felton and Jane Krakowski.

Best onstage performance went to Waiting for Godot for an endearing piece starring the show’s youngest cast members – Zaynn Arora and Eric Williams. Fed up with waiting for a titular star who never arrives, the boys erupted into a hilarious parody of “Waiting for Life” from Once on This Island. The tiny duo cheekily chronicled their woes with show-stopping harmonies and wonderfully clever lyrics, written by the boys and Bridget Mills, the show’s child guardian.

Hamilton earned the runner-up performance award as the founding fathers got down in “Sons of Liberty Gone Wild,” a piece written, directed and choreographed by original cast member Thayne Jasperson. The high-octane and flirtatiously fierce number found John Laurens, Hercules Mulligan and Marquis de Lafayette performing presidentially seductive twists on pop hits from Michael Jackson, Sam Smith and Beyoncé, backed by a smoldering ensemble of revolutionary dancers.

This year’s opening number took a delightfully meta turn, following Stephen Lloyd Rodgers von Schwartzenheim – played by James T. Lane – as he struggled to write the opening number for Red Bucket Follies. In a Broadway musical-fueled twist on a Christmas Carol–style hallucination, he was joined by Jenna Bainbridge as the fabulous vision that warns him of the ghosts of Broadway past, present and future. They were brought to life with theatrical flair by Antwayn Hopper, Jermaine Miles and Rachelle Rak. The apparitions reminded him that, despite all the chaos in the world, nothing can extinguish the joy and glitter of Broadway – and in times this unprecedented, people need theater more than ever. The number was directed and choreographed by Andrew Turtletaub, with music and lyrics by Chris Dimond and Michael Kooman.

Seth Rudetsky, host of SiriusXM’s On Broadway channel, returned to host the show. He delighted the audience with industry insider stories and his quintessential deconstructions, unpacking the vocal idiosyncrasies and brilliance of Barbra Streisand and Judy Kuhn.

Rudetsky was also joined by his Broadway friends for special, Red Bucket Follies–exclusive performances. Death Becomes Her’s Christopher Sieber offered a poignant reminder of how theater lets us escape and dream with a stirring performance of The Prom’s “We Look to You,” while Rudetsky’s SiriusXM co-host Christine Pedi delivered a spot-on Liza Minnelli impression in an outrageous medley of ABBA hits.

The audience was further treated to Hadestown’s two-time Grammy Award winner Kurt Elling, who teamed with the show’s music director, Dionne Hendricks, for a swinging rendition of Horace Silver and Jon Hendricks’ classic “Doodlin’.”

When the special effects at a fictional performance of Stranger Things: The First Shadow suddenly went haywire, the cast leaned into the upside-down and dove headfirst into a fever-dream production of Oklahoma!. Complete with a surreal dream ballet, the company delivered a thrillingly unhinged number that mashed up theatrical touchstones from Into the Woods to Wicked – all before the special effects finally sparked back to life.

The cast of Hell’s Kitchen ventured into the sometimes terrifying and often unnerving world of artificial intelligence with “Franken-AI.” When a backstage AI assistant blurred the line between friend and machine, it got tangled up in the cast’s own behind-the-scenes drama in a topical scene written by Reid Clarke and Jackie Leon.

A disco ball descended from the New Amsterdam ceiling to illuminate a disco-inspired dance number from the cast of Mamma Mia!, set to the Pussycat Dolls’ twist on Gloria Gaynor’s iconic “I Will Survive.” The theater burst with energy, effervescence and full-tilt ABBA-era sparkle.

When Danny from Vape! The Grease Parody suddenly found himself “hopelessly devoted” to a blonde Australian girl holding a Red Bucket for charity, he and his castmates shared their show’s saucy send-up of “Summer Nights,” complete with modernized lyrics – turning “tell me more, tell me more” into “what’s the tea, what’s the tea.”

Chaz Wolcott directed and choreographed a lively salute to the 20 national touring productions that joined the fall fundraising effort. The baseball-inspired tap number was a home run, playfully celebrating and referencing touring shows making an impact, including Six, Wicked, Hamilton, MJ, Suffs, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and more.

Representing Dancers Responding to AIDS, a program of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, Leggybones Physical Theater presented their athletic and cheeky Nocturne, which was presented earlier this year at Hudson Valley Dance Festival. The dynamic push and pull between the company’s founders Casey Howes and Jake Warren, paired with their athletic physicality and gravity-defying lifts, served as a delightfully comedic counterpoint to the piece’s stoic Chopin score.

Here’s the breakdown of this year’s fundraising leaders:

Broadway Musical
Top Fundraiser	Hamilton	$564,393
1st Runner-Up	Just in Time	$491,236
2nd Runner-Up	Maybe Happy Ending	$286,274
3rd Runner-Up	Hadestown	$251,603
4th Runner-Up	Wicked	$177,298

Broadway Play
Top Fundraiser	Waiting for Godot	$430,790
1st Runner-Up	Oh, Mary!	$264,442
2nd Runner-Up	Art	$188,905

Off-Broadway (Play or Musical)
Top Fundraiser	Prince Faggot	$47,826
1st Runner-Up	Little Shop of Horrors	$41,866
2nd Runner-Up	Heathers	$37,397

National Tours
Top Fundraiser	Wicked – Munchkinland	$273,544
1st Runner-Up	A Beautiful Noise, The Neil Diamond Musical	$248,677
2nd Runner-Up	The Sound of Music	$244,261
3rd Runner-Up	Beauty and the Beast	$206,816
4th Runner-Up	Moulin Rouge! The Musical	$203,155

Tony Award nominee Jessica Hecht led the audience in a powerful moment of silence to honor lives lost to HIV and AIDS, while also holding space for those across the country still struggling in silence and in need of support.

Other special presenters included Kecia Lewis, who shared a powerful personal story of receiving vital support through the lifesaving partnership between Broadway Cares and the Entertainment Community Fund, and Marc Shaiman, who recounted meeting his husband at a past Red Bucket Follies before reflecting on his personal connection to Broadway Cares’ National Grants Program.

Four New York cast members of international sensation Forever Plaid – Bruce Blanchard, Paul Castree, David Engel and Larry Raben – reunited, using their heavenly harmonies to honor the 55 participating Broadway, Off-Broadway and national tours, turning an impressive tally into a musical moment.

The panel of judges who selected the best presentation winners were introduced by Sieber.

This year’s judges were Kate Baldwin; Jenni Barber and Will Burton; T.R. Knight and Louis McCartney; Brad Oscar; Emma Pittman; and Kara Young. Also joining the panel were Amy Abravanel, Annie Silver and Peg Wendlandt, who won their judging spots by bidding on exclusive VIP packages at the 39th annual Broadway Flea Market & Grand Auction in September.

Red Bucket Follies was directed by Kathleen E. Purvis with Bernadette Schoenborn serving as production stage manager, leading a team of 16 accomplished stage managers. Ted Arthur served as music supervisor, with Andrew Graham as music director and Charles Gordon as music coordinator. Lighting design was by Paul Vaillancourt with sound design by Marie Renee Foucher.

Since 1989, the 34 editions of Red Bucket Follies have raised $111.5 million to benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. 

Red Bucket Follies was performed at the New Amsterdam Theatre, home to Disney’s Aladdin. Red Bucket Follies was sponsored by The New York Times and United, the official airline of Broadway Cares.

Photos by Michael Hull and Rebecca Michelson
Video by Bardo Arts; edited by Josh Drake

This year’s program