‘Broadway Bares: Game Night’ (photo: Evan Zimmerman)
The annual fundraiser Broadway Bares crushed it once again Sunday night as Broadway’s hottest dancers and the production crew came together to raise funds for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.
The dancers and choreographers have spent weeks not only learning and perfecting the scintillating numbers performed last night but campaigning online for donations.
BroadwayBares: Game Night, this year’s record-breaking edition of the annual spectacular, featured sexy, titillating production production numbers based on your favorite board games for two late night performances.
The cast of ‘Broadway Bares: Game Night’ play Battleship (screen capture)
Directed by Nick Kenkel, the show featured sexy riffs on games like Battleship, Pictionary (“Striptionary”), Candy Land, Operation, Old Maid (who proved she was anything but), and more.
Produced by and benefiting Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, Broadway Bares: Game Night raised $1,875,090 with two standing-room-only performances on Sunday, June 17, 2018, at New York City’s Hammerstein Ballroom.
The Boys in the Band’s Matt Bomer, Charlie Carver, Robin de Jesús, Zachary Quinto, Andrew Rannells, Michael Benjamin Washington and Tuc Watkins appeared in a special trivia game sketch.
Charlie Carver of ‘The Boys in the Band (screen capture)’
For each wrong answer, young Charlie had to remove an article of clothing until the penultimate moment when Zach Quinto ripped off Carver’s thong to screams from the packed-house.
Congrats to Tom Viola of Broadway Cares and Tony Award winner and creator of Broadway Bares, Jerry Mitchell, on another incredible night to help others!
Without warning, the Instagram account of the uber-popular Warwick Rowers disappeared from the social media platform.
The rowing club of athletic lads from Warwickshire in the UK has produced a cheeky calendar since 2009.
Proceeds from the calendar benefit the Rowers’ outreach program, Sport Allies, which works to eliminate homophobia in sports through education and support of young LGBT athletes.
The team tweeted yesterday that the Instagram account had been ‘deactivated’ without warning. “We’re hoping this is a mistake and are waiting for them to allow us back on the platform to keep spreading our message,” wrote the rowers.
As you may have noticed, our @instagram account has been permanently deactivated without any reason communicated to us. We’re hoping this is a mistake and are waiting for them to allow us back on the platform to keep spreading our message @outmagazinehttps://t.co/9cAcyd5miT
Nick Robinson and Keiynan Lonsdale in ‘Love, Simon’
It looks like the MTV Movie Awards loved the romantic coming-out/coming-of-age film Love, Simon as much as we did.
At last night’s awards, the film’s two lead actors, Nick Robinson and Keiynan Lonsdale, took home the trophy for “Best Kiss” for their yes-yes-yes lip-lock at the end of the movie.
Here’s the award-winning smooch:
Robinson wasn’t available for the ceremony as he’s shooting a new project, but Lonsdale (who came out as bisexual last year) took the stage to accept the award saying:
“I just want to say to every kid — if you can live your dreams and wear dresses; you can live your dreams and kiss the one that you love no matter what gender they are. You can live your dreams and you can believe in magic, you can live your dreams, and you can be yourself.”
Love, Simon was the first mainstream film featuring a gay lead character to be backed by a major studio. Released in March, the film was met with strong reviews and box office. To date, the film has grossed almost $60 million on a budget of $17 million.
This is the second year in a row the MTV Movie Awards have honored a same-sex kiss with last year’s nod going to the Oscar winning Moonlight’s beachside kiss between actors Ashton Sanders and Jharrel Jerome.
Boy Culture points out the long history of same-sex kissed in the category with same-sex wins by Cruel Intentions in 2000, American Pie 2 in 2002, Starsky & Hutch in 2004, Brokeback Mountain in 2006, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby in 2007, and Moonlight in 2017.
Speaking with Fox News Monday night, Attorney General Jeff Sessions defended the current scandal regarding ripping children away from their parents at the U.S. southern border saying, “This is not like Nazi Germany because in Nazi Germany they were keeping the Jews from leaving the country.”
I’m pretty sure that when you have to explain to people why your policies aren’t exactly like Nazi Germany, it’s time to rethink your policies.
Sessions says this is not like Nazi Germany “because in Nazi Germany, they were keeping the Jews from leaving the country!” pic.twitter.com/v2BiWN8aXj
Hillary Clinton addressed the ongoing debacle involving separating children from their parents at the southern border of the United States today.
In her address, in a clear and steadfast voice delivered at the Women’s Forum of New York, Clinton makes it clear that there is no “law” that requires ripping children from their parents arms and putting them in cages.
“Separating families is not mandated by law at all. That is an outright lie.”
This is how a president acts when facing difficult issues.
In the ongoing issue of separating children from migrant parents at the U.S. southern border, Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst Andrew Napolitano told Fox News’ Dana Perino the Trump administration’s policy is “abusive.”
While the White House has been getting a lot of heat for the policy, Donald Trump says they have to follow the law. In fact, there is no law which dictates this practice must be followed.
“I think the administration is motivated by the president’s skills at negotiating. And I think he’s trying to use children to turn up the heat on the negotiators. In my opinion, it is child abuse to separate children from their parents unless it’s necessary to save a human life. That’s not the case here. There’s a federal statute that says you can’t separate them more than 72 hours. They know all of this. They’re picking and choosing which rules they want to follow rigidly and which rules they wish weren’t there.”
As Perino points out, the Trump administration recently announced it would not defend the Affordable Care Act in any legal proceeding saying they have “legal discretion” to ignore the law.
See? Picking and choosing.
Trump has shifted the blame to Congressional Democrats for the policy his Attorney General Jeff Sessions implemented. Trump says Democrats have refused to come to negotiate on a broader immigration law.
Running errands over the weekend, Steve Winwood’s 1986 classic “Back in the High Life” came on the music system and it immediately took me back to the heyday of the 80s.
With themes of reflection, redemption and reinvention, the song (written by Winwood and Will Jennings) marches forward clear-eyed and focused.
But I’d be remiss if I didn’t feature my favorite rendition of the song by Broadway and TV star Nell Carter.
Filmed for a TV special – In a New Light: A Call to Action in the War Against AIDS – broadcast July 11, 1992, Carter is a force of nature ripping through the anthem.
In the clip, Carter (who self-identified as bisexual) shares for the first time that her brother, Bernard, had actually died from AIDS in 1989.
I actually attended the dress rehearsal for the TV special in Los Angeles and was thunderstruck by her power onstage.
Watch as she builds and builds through the bridge to a gorgeous release at the 2:40 mark.
And then that growl at 2:52 gives me life!
I’ve literally played this clip hundreds of times.
Tony Award winner Billy Porter on ‘Live with Kelly & Ryan’
Billy Porter, Tony Award winner (Kinky Boots) and star of the new FX series Pose, recently dropped by Live with Kelly & Ryan to dish on the new series and how he ‘found’ show business.
It all has to do with The Wiz, Dreamgirls and thirsting for Jordache jeans.
Billy shares that theater first came into his life when his grandmother took him to see a national touring company of the Broadway musical, The Wiz, on his birthday in Pittsburgh, PA.
“I just fell in love,” says Porter. “And I thought, ‘Oh, I can actually do this for a living?’”
That revelation led to a job performing at a theme park the summer he turned 15 years-old. It was a grueling schedule of six shows a day, but Porter had his eyes on a prize.
“I stayed in a motel, I was fifteen, my mom had to give me permission to work cause I needed my Jordache jeans,” says the future Broadway star. “Oh, she said ‘You got champagne taste on a beer budget – you gonna have to find a job!’”
It wasn’t all glamour though.
“I had to wash out my costumes in the bathtub and hang them to drip dry for the next day,” shared Porter. “But what it did was it taught me discipline; it taught me how to show up for work every day because we work six days a week.”
“I was 15 years old working six days a week but I made that money honey – I got them jeans Jordache jeans.”
Pivoting to Pose, Kelly gushed, “This speaks to me – I almost feel like this TV show was written for me.”
Porter describes the series, about the LGBT ball culture in the go-go 1980s in New York City, as being about “family:”
“That culture is a space where this group of people, often rejected by their family, rejected by society, they’ve come together to create their own family unit. They take care of each other; the choice to live; the choice to choose life; the choice to celebrate life in the middle of the most horrific of tragedies is what this is about. It’s about empowerment, its about self-love, its about family, its about community. And it is the greatest job of my life.”
“We come to these balls which is, essentially, the family reunion, the family gathering. And there are ‘houses’ that are like ‘gay gangs’ and they come together in one space for these balls to walk categories; to walk the aspirational categories that they can’t quite actually achieve in life. And I’m sort of the godfather of the community.”
Billy Porter
And speaking of ‘walking,’ when Kelly asks for a lesson in vogueing Porter doesn’t hesitate to step to the floor for pose class.
“It’s posing on the rhythm,” he says. But there’s subtext, you see.
“It’s literally about making sure that you believe in yourself. So, the way you believe in yourself and how you present yourself is how you stand – so believe in yourself.”
Noting Ryan Seacrest’s rather frumpy body posture, Porter paused to query, “Do you believe in yourself?”
“Present yourself fully to the world,” says the actor as he reached for the sky as the music kicked in. “And rhythm, uh uh; and here, uh uh; and love the people!”
Its really a fab segment. Everyone in show biz is not necessarily great at being interviewed. The clock ticks quick in TV time and you have to be able to get your points across about the project you’re there to share, but also be open and accessible.
Porter is so comfortable in his skin and living life so loud its impossible to not succumb to his charms. Watch below.
Pose airs Sundays at 9PM on FX.
For more of the life and sass that is Billy Porter, click the play button below for my interview with the talented actor and singer about his latest album, and a few other topics in our no-holds-barred chat.
A possible second life for ABC’s hit sitcom Roseanne is looking more and more likely according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that Roseanne Barr has agreed in principle to walk away from the characters she helped create in order to allow Roseanne’s cast and crew to pursue a spinoff in the wake of the show’s May cancellation due to her racist tweets.
ABC and producer Carsey-Werner are insisting that Barr not participate financially or creatively in the proposed spinoff, which is said to revolve around the character played by Sara Gilbert. Other Roseanne writer-producers and castmembers, including John Goodman and Laurie Metcalf, are said to be tentatively on board (they would receive the same fees as previously negotiated for the second season of the Roseanne revival, which was ABC’s top-rated program this season).
But since Barr would be entitled to substantial fees and backend on any spinoff of Roseanne (the original series was created by Matt Williams, but it is also credited as being “based upon a character created by Barr”), she must waive those rights before any such show could proceed.
According to THR Roseanne is tentatively negotiating a one-time “go-away-money” payout.
Behind the scenes Barr is said to be contrite over how her racist tweet about former White House adviser Valerie Jarrett torpedoed the newly-rebooted show which became the #1 sitcom on ABC this past season.
Gilbert, Goodman and Metcalf would receive their contractual $300,000 per episode salaries.
Although cut out of future royalties for new episodes, Roseanne would still receive royalties for the first ten episodes of the show.
That’s right, honey! A decade after their unforgettable eight-season run from 1998 to 2006, comedy’s most fabulous foursome returned to their infamous Will & Grace roles as Will, Grace, Jack and Karen in this TV season’s biggest reboot.
With the legendary James Burrows at the helm (directed every original Will & Grace episode), the show’s stars (Eric McCormack, Debra Messing, Sean Hayes and Megan Mullally) were once again delivering razor-sharp jabs and dirty martinis.
