LGBTQ news and entertainment
In case you weren’t sure who Republican presidential hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz is, Full Frontal‘s Samantha Bee gives you a crash course on the guy no one in the U.S. Senate likes.
Bee goes into Cruz’s childhood, college years, his crazy father, and besties David Barton and Pastor Kevin “Kill The Gays” Swanson.
Variety reports that Broadway juggernaut Wicked has become the third production on the Great White Way to notch over $1 billion at the box office.
The show has achieved the milestone faster than any other Broadway production that has topped $1 billion in New York sales alone — an elite pantheon of which there are only two other members, “The Lion King” and “The Phantom of the Opera.” Disney juggernaut “The Lion King” was the first to do it in 2013, 16 years after its 1997 bow, and evergreen “Phantom” followed in 2015, some 27 years after its 1988 premiere. (Back when “Phantom” opened, a sold-out smash translated to about $550,000 in late-80s dollars, a far cry from the $3.2 million “Wicked” scored over a record-breaking holiday week in 2013.)
“Wicked” has spent the majority of its run at or near the top of Broadway’s weekly sales chart. The $1 billion cumulative take accounts for about one quarter of the title’s $4 billion worldwide sales; more than $2.8 billion of that comes from the show’s other North American companies, including tours and sit-down productions in Chicago, L.A. and San Francisco.
Internationally, the musical has played to 50 million people in 14 countries, including Japan, Mexico and Australia, and been translated into six languages. A West End outpost has been running in London since 2006.
Interesting footnote: Wicked did not win Best Musical or Best Score at the 2004 Tony Awards (Avenue Q snagged those prizes). As a matter of fact, the show only won 3 Tony Awards.
I’d say living well is truly the best revenge 🙂
(tipped by Randy Report reader John)
Taking part in a Sirius XM town hall with EW Radio’s Jess Cagle, Academy Award winner Sally Field was asked what advice she would give parents of a gay child who was on the threshold of coming out.
Her answer was a grand-slam home run.
From People:
“First of all, don’t be frightened. And don’t put your own prejudices or fears about sexuality – your own fears about sexuality – on your children,” Field says. “Sexuality is a human glorious part of existence.”
Field noted in Sam’s case it was initially difficult for her son to become accustomed to his identity as a gay man. The Oscar-winner said she did her best to encourage Sam to discover his true self: “I welcomed him to welcome himself and find that part of his life.”
She hopes other parents can do the same.
“What horrifies me is that there are parents who so disapprove, who are so brainwashed to think that this is something out of the Bible or ungodly or against nature,” Field continued. “It’s not against nature if nature has actually done this. Sam was always Sam, this wonderful human that he is, from the time he was born. … Some people actually shut their children out of the house when they’re young, they’re teenagers – they’re having a hard enough time to be teenagers and own any part of sexuality. I’m still trying to figure it out!”
Field’s latest movie, Hello, My Name is Doris, is in theaters now. “The Sally Field Town Hall,” hosted by Jess Cagle, debuts March 17 at 2 p.m. ET on EW Radio.
Caitlyn Jenner shared the pic above, featuring Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, on her Instagram yesterday.
Apparently, the photo is from January when Jenner and posse headed up to Iowa in advance of the first in the nation caucus. Jenner and company waited in the lobby of Clinton’s hotel with lots of other folks hoping to get the photo op.
A bit surprising move considering Jenner has just recently called Clinton a “fucking liar” and a “political hack.” But the pic was accompanied by the hashtags #learningfrommygirls and #willingtolisten.
As I’ve said before, I appreciate the visibility Jenner brings to transgender issues, I’m not certain she’s the perfect role model for the trans community. But then, who of us IS the “perfect role model?”
#OpenMinds
Hamilton star Lin-Manuel Miranda raps freestyle in the Rose Garden as President Obama flips through cue cards for the word-master to use.
Obama has to be the first president ever to say “Drop the beat” in the White House Rose Garden.
Coolest president ever.
Via Deadline:
In essence, Sausage Party uses the Pixar formula as its starting point and finishes somewhere around Lars Von Trier’s The Idiots. The premise is simple: What if food could feel? No, that’s not quite it. It’s more like What if food could feel, and swear, and be racist and have sex? It stars Seth Rogen as Frank, a hot dog, and Kristen Wiig as Bun, his girlfriend. The pair live in their respective packages along with every other item in a fictional grocery store (“Shopwell”) where all items of food belong to a religion that worships the human shoppers as gods who they pray will select them and take them into “the great beyond,” the food version of heaven.
Obviously, the truth is that when they’re “chosen,” the food is taken from the comfort and ease of their grocery store to their doom. What happens when Frank, Bun and several of their new and old friends discover that horrifying truth forms the meat of the story.
Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi has (not surprisingly) endorsed GOP front-runner Donald Trump a day before the state’s presidential primary.
I’m certain it has absolutely nothing to do with Trump’s $25,000 donation to her re-election campaign.
From The Intercept:
Trump just won a key endorsement going into Tuesday’s Florida primary: the state’s attorney general, Pam Bondi.
But her bigger favor to Trump may have been her decision in 2013 not to pursue an investigation of Trump’s for-profit education chain after he made a big donation to her re-election campaign.
As Scott Maxwell of the Orlando Sentinel reported at the time, Bondi announced in September 2013 that her office was reviewing a series of complaints related to the Trump Institute of Boca Raton, a for-profit education company that is no longer in operation.
Three days after the report that Bondi was considering joining other states’ attorneys general in taking action against Trump’s for-profit education chain, the real estate mogul dumped $25,000 into a committee organized for Bondi’s re-election. Bondi ended up taking no action.
As my fellow blogger JoeMyGod points out, Trump is always quick to point out how he successfully “donates” to politicians because he’s such a good businessman. I guess when a loan is called in, you pay up.
Regular readers will recall that Bondi continually opposed same-sex marriage in her state all the way down to the very bitter end. Even when it was clear which way the courts were ruling, she was like a dog with a bone. Clearly, she assumed she was winning conservative points for fighting down the line.
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| Convicted gay-basher Kathryn Knot |
After being convicted for her part in the violent gay-bashing of two Philadelphia men in 2014, 25 year-old Kathryn Knott was sentenced to 5-10 months in prison, plus two years probation in addition to anger management classes and a $2,000 fine.
The attack left two men bloodied in the street with one man’s shattered jaw having to be wired shut for months.
Ten days after her sentencing, Knott’s lawyer, Bill Brennan, requested a resentencing hearing to consider other options for her punishment.
Judge Roxanne Covington agreed to hear the appeal. And then denied the motion.
From PhillyVoice:
“The sentence is well within the guidelines and is as appropriate as I can provide within the law and shall remain,” Covington told Knott and her attorney, Bill Brennan, in court. “The motion is denied.”
Brennan requested Covington consider alternatives to incarceration, contending that Knott’s sentencing should be more rehabilitative and a better attempt to heal the wounds caused by the assault. He suggested Covington incorporate a public service announcement or community service into a new sentence.
In denying the motion, Covington said Knott displayed a “complete disconnection” from the assault and a “failure” to take ownership of her actions despite issuing an apology at her sentencing hearing.
“As injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, hatred toward any group is no different than hatred toward all of us,” Covington said. “Every single one of us has a right to be who we are, to love who we want and to walk down the street and enjoy the city safely, without fear of ridicule, of torture, of attack.”
Knott was offered the same plea deal her co-conspirators received. She declined the plea deal choosing to try her luck in court. That didn’t play out with the jury.
She was unapologetic right up to the minute her guilty verdict was read. It was only after that she suddenly seemed interested in expressing remorse.
Somehow I have completely missed the fact that Ariana Grande does spot-on impressions of other superstar pop singers. And she does them really, really well.
As the host of SNL this weekend, Grande headed up a skit where, as the intern of “Tidal Music Streaming” she has to step in when a power outage takes down the Britney Spears, Rihanna, Shakira, Celine and Whitney channels.
On top of the excellent impressions, Grande reminds what great pipes she has.