First off, if these pictures I’ve seen posted from a day ago are current, he looks great. I know that even on a bad day, Aaron Lazar is still going to look great, but honestly, I was scared to look.
The first time I ever had to understand what ALS was happened in the early ’90s. I knew someone who had it, and it was so alarming that I got involved in raising awareness and even created and participated in a fundraising campaign that year with everyone at PolyGram, or maybe it was MCA/Universal. Back then, it was the first time I had ever heard of anyone having it since Lou Gehrig. It was almost unheard of, or at least rarely talked about, in the early ’90s. For me personally, no one really knew what to do while watching someone go through it. That was the alarming part of it.
I also had to take a day to figure out whether I even wanted to cover it and write about it. I even asked my mom because they are psuedo friends today, because I’m not one of those people who sits in a hospital room and posts pictures on Facebook from the bed, with cords in my skin and machines attached to me for the general public to see while asking for prayers. Conversely, the people closest to me know to keep everyone out of that room, so to speak, or I’ll get healthy and go ballistic. I don’t want anyone lifting a finger for me, this is not speaking financially, just in general I do not want help (I expect my healthcare to be covered). I wasn’t even sure he wanted to talk about it, but I do realize that the event and its press release that had been sent to me yesterday is too important not to be shared. It will sell out quickly. That is not a concern for me at least. The way I rationalize it, it’s really about the overall issue.
As we all know, we New Jersey people have always taken genuine pride in claiming our own, and this August that pride takes center stage in Holmdel, where the Broadway and Hollywood communities are coming together to support one of Cherry Hill’s own. Not only that, but we grew up on the same street, Lantern Lane, back in the ’70s through the mid-’80s, at least for my time there. On Monday, August 31, 2026, at 7 p.m., the Bell Theater at Bell Works will host Extraordinary, Broadway Sings for Aaron Lazar, a genuinely star-studded benefit concert built around a simple, powerful idea, that when one of New Jersey’s own is fighting something this significant, the wider community shows up.
The scale of the show alone tells you exactly how much Aaron Lazar means to the people who know him best. Headliners taking the Bell Theater stage include Patrick Wilson, Norbert Leo Butz, Victoria Clark, Mandy Gonzalez, and Kate Baldwin, a seven-time Tony Award nominee who is leading the one-night benefit. That kind of lineup doesn’t assemble itself for just anyone. It assembles when a genuinely beloved performer, one who has spent a career on Broadway and on screen, needs his community, and that community answers without hesitation.
Rather than retreating from public life since his ALS diagnosis, Lazar has done something genuinely remarkable, he’s kept creating. His Grammy nominated album, Impossible Dream, brought together an extraordinary roster of collaborators, including Josh Groban, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Neil Patrick Harris, Leslie Odom Jr., Kristin Chenoweth, Kelli O’Hara, and Norm Lewis, with every proceed from the project directed straight toward his medical care and toward ALS awareness more broadly. Alongside the album, Lazar has also launched Impossible Dreams, a video podcast series exploring the human spirit and mental resilience, treating his own circumstances not as something to hide from but as material worth turning into something that might genuinely help someone else facing their own impossible fight. That’s the version of Aaron Lazar showing up in Holmdel this August, an artist still actively building, not a man asking for sympathy.
It’s worth remembering, too, exactly how far Lazar’s own career has already traveled well beyond the Broadway stage. He shared the screen with Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street, playing Blair Hollingsworth, a character drawn from real life high roller Alan Wilzig. Anyone who’s seen that film knows it’s a chaotic, sprawling ensemble piece, so Lazar may not have shared an intimate scene directly with DiCaprio, but he’s permanently part of that film’s history, part of the Stratton Oakmont universe now immortalized on screen. Here’s hoping some of that Wolf Pack energy, and a little Hollywood generosity, finds its way back to one of its own this August.
And bringing this back to me again, he also turned up in Shawn Levy’s This Is Where I Leave You, which is one of my favorite movies believe it or not, playing Barry Weissman, the aloof, perpetually on-the-phone husband of Tina Fey’s character, a guy who spends most of the funeral and shiva scenes pacing around outside closing corporate deals while the rest of the family sits shiva inside. It’s a small role in a genuinely stacked cast, Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Adam Driver, Jane Fonda, Rose Byrne, and Corey Stoll all featured alongside him, but it’s exactly the kind of “hey, I know that guy” moment that I love because again, I love the film itself, is just another way, you see just how many corners of the entertainment industry Lazar has quietly touched over the years.
If any of those Hollywood heavyweights happen to notice their old on screen relative fighting a very real battle back home in Jersey, this benefit concert would be a pretty great place to show up.
Lazar himself has been genuinely moved by the scale of support pouring in, describing how blown away he’s been by the outpouring, noting that every single donation, whether five dollars or five thousand, represents an act of love. That sentiment captures exactly what’s happening here, a genuine, community-wide expression of care for someone who has spent his career giving audiences everything he’s got, on Broadway stages and in front of cameras alike.
For anyone hoping to be part of this, tickets to Extraordinary, Broadway Sings for Aaron Lazar go on sale Friday, July 24, 2026, at 10 a.m. Eastern. With 100 percent of ticket proceeds going straight toward Lazar’s care, buying a seat in Holmdel this August is about as direct a way as there is to show up for a fellow New Jerseyan in a moment that matters. For readers who can’t make it to the Bell Theater but still want to help support his ongoing specialized treatment and caregiving costs, Lazar’s family has set up a verified GoFundMe campaign accepting direct contributions of any size.
New Jersey has never been shy about claiming its own, and this August, with Broadway’s biggest names filling a New Jersey stage for one of the Garden State’s most talented sons, that pride comes with a genuine chance to help. Whether it’s a ticket in Holmdel or a donation from home, this is New Jersey’s moment to show Aaron Lazar exactly what showing up for one another actually looks like.
