Stages of life

Kirk Baird

Friday, June 21, 2002 | 9:04 a.m.

A press release claims the 16th annual "Ribbon of Life" will be "The largest production show ever staged in Las Vegas."

It's hard to argue. This year's production, to be held Saturday and Sunday at Mandalay Bay's Storm Theatre, features 350 performers.

"Ribbon of Life" is a benefit for the nonproft group Golden Rainbow, which provides housing and financial support to Southern Nevadans living with HIV/ AIDS.

The list of stars includes: Siegfried and Roy, Clint Holmes, Sheena Easton, Charo, Bob Anderson, Jimmy Hopper, Mariana G., cast members from the productions of "Storm," "Bottoms Up," "Bravo," "EFX," "Jubilee!" "Show in the Sky," "Tease" and "Tony and Tina's Wedding," "Honky Tonk Angels," "Forever Plaid," and local theatrical companies Nevada Ballet Theater, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas dance department and Las Vegas Little Theatre.

"We get a lot of submissions," said Natalie Fleming, a board member for Golden Rainbow. "If we let everybody do the show, it would be an eight-hour show." This year there were 40 submissions from area performers and/or stage shows to participate in the event, 20 of which were selected.

It wasn't always so.

Robert Townzen is artistic director for this year's "Ribbon of Life," a position he has held six of the past seven years. Townzen is also the sole remaining original board member of Golden Rainbow.

Townzen remembers a time when many hotels on the Strip didn't want to be associated with the AIDS fund-raiser.

"It was very taboo and also very taboo with a number of hotels here in town when we wanted to put on the benefit," he said. "Thanks to the people at Bally's we were able to put it on (in 1987)."

The reluctance, though, didn't stop with hotel management. Several show producers also frowned on the benefit.

"There were producers here in town whose casts were going to participate with that show who were told they should not be associated with that AIDS thing," Townzen said.

"Ribbon of Life" began as a fund-raising idea when word got out that a dancer in a Strip production had left his show because he had the disease. That was 1986-'87, when the world was becoming fully aware of the severity and magnitude of AIDS.

At the time some believed simply being around someone with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome -- shaking their hand, breathing the air after they sneezed, drinking from the same glass -- was enough to be infected with the deadly virus. There were few organized fund-raisers to assist those afflicted.

But Townzen and two other Las Vegas performers joined to make a difference. The group created a benefit show called "Golden Rainbow," which raised funds for Aid For AIDS of Nevada (AFAN), one of the first local nonprofit organizations to benefit those with HIV and AIDS.

That year "Golden Rainbow" raised $16,000, with about 100 cast members participating in the event.

The production was so well-received, Townzen said a nonprofit organization was born from the event.

Named Golden Rainbow after the first production benefit, the charity was formed in December 1987 and the Ribbon of Life, as it came to be known, is its biggest fund-raiser.

The 1988 show featured more participants and doubled the first show's earnings with $32,000. The third show tripled that amount.

"(AIDS) was more accepted every year because there was so much being brought out in the news," Townzen said. "As people became aware you could not catch this disease from a handshake, people began to relax a bit. We really began to pick up a lot of support from the Las Vegas community and hotels, more of the producers and big businesses in town."

Last year's event raised $250,000 for Golden Rainbow, an all-time high. In fact, each year the amount of donations to the group has increased, although the events of Sept. 11 have lessened the hope this year's show will produce the same record-breaking results.

"We would very much like to do that this year, but we're not maybe as optimistic because of events that happened in the world last year," Fleming said.

Holmes, who has participated in the "Ribbon of Life" since arriving in Las Vegas three years ago, said despite Sept. 11, Americans should not lose focus of other national crises.

"Anyone with any awareness in the world is aware of AIDS. It still needs to be dealt with and the battle still goes on," he said. "Back in September when everyone was focused on the victims of 9/11, I remember reading donations were down for everything else. These other things -- cancer, leukemia and AIDS -- still go on. And every now and then we need to ring that bell and say we're still here and we still need help.

"Having friends I've worked with who have died from (AIDS), how could you not be involved and raising recognition in helping to defeat it?"

Townzen said he hopes one day there won't be a need for "Ribbon of Life" shows.

"The great hope of all is that some day we can say, 'We don't need to do that next year,' " he said.