Bette Midler’s annual Halloween party, Hulaween, which benefits The New York Restoration Project (NYRP), will celebrate its 20th anniversary with Hell Night on Hulaween Island: A Night to Dismember, on Friday, October 30, 2015 at The Waldorf Astoria Hotel, New York City. The evening will honor Founder Bette Midler with the “Green Goddess” Award, and Dan and Sheryl Tishman with the “Wind Beneath My Wings” Leadership Award. Nile Rodgers and Chic will perform. Comedian Judy Gold will host and fashion designer Michael Kors will judge the Halloween costume contest.
“This year New York Restoration Project and I are celebrating 20 fantastic years of cleaning and greening New York City. We are kicking off our 20th year with our Costume Ball, HULAWEEN, on October 30, not long after celebrating the planting of the Millionth Tree in our MillionTreesNYC program, begun with former Mayor Bloomberg,” said Bette Midler. “I am so proud of our part in changing the face of the city, in cleaning parks, highways, and vacant lots, in saving and supporting community gardens, and in pointing out that the citizens of the greatest city in the world deserve a healthy, clean, sustainable environment.”
“It has been an exciting, challenging, but ultimately inspiring journey from 1995 to today,” said NYRP Executive Director, Deborah Marton. “We have been part of a much larger movement across the city to ensure that every New Yorker has access to clean, open space. We’re grateful to recognize the benevolence of our supporters and our 17,000 volunteers, whose contributions have allowed NYRP to help New York City plant a historic one million trees, transform more than 800 New York City acres, and to bring us closer to our goal of ensuring that every New Yorker is within walking distance of a public park or garden.”
This year’s theme, Hell Night on Hulaween Island, was inspired by “B” horror films that emerged in the 1950’s and 60’s, in particular the 1966 film “The Island of Doctor Moreau” with its maniacal monsters and mollycoddled misfits. The theme combines tropical elements signature to Bette’s Hulaween invention and merges them with zombies, witch doctors, exotic creatures and cannibals. What makes the idea of Hulaween so intoxicating is the mental mash-up of Halloween with “Hawaiiana”. Every year the Hulaween team tosses a handful of provocative proverbial ingredients into the Hulaween caldron and rigorously stirs over high heat to see what they can conjure.
The table-scape for the guests consists of an open grave constructed out of 25 pounds of crushed Oreo cookies piled onto the middle of the table. A sinister pickling jar sits atop the plot with the divine miss and M’s severed head floating in the bloody vessel. Writhing in the sweet, cookie dirt are serpents, centipedes and glittery cockroaches. Severed hands grasp through chocolate gravel seeking their next victim.
The stage don’s custom art created exclusively for Hulaween –a macabre, Technicolor explosion of pattern and shapes swirl inside 18 foot human skull illustrations. On the stage, 7 full scale headstones flank the performance and act as the podium for the night’s festivities.
TICKET INFORMATION
Tickets start at $650 and may be reserved by calling Buckley Hall Events at 914-579-1000 or emailing nyrpevents@buckleyhallevents.com.
ABOUT NEW YORK RESTORATION PROJECT
Founded by Bette Midler in 1995, NYRP is a non-profit organization dedicated to transforming open space in under-resourced communities to create a greener, more sustainable New York City. Unlike traditional conservancies that care for a specific place, NYRP is the only New York City conservancy that works citywide, bringing private resources to spaces that lack adequate municipal support. NYRP is also the leading private partner of the City of New York in MillionTreesNYC – an initiative to plant and care for one million new trees throughout New York City’s five boroughs by 2015. To learn more, please visit www.nyrp.org.
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