Tag: Billy Porter

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One More Day Until World Pride Opening Ceremony In NYC

Just a day away from the Opening Ceremony of WorldPride in New York City, Wednesday, June 26, 2019.

The event will be formatted as a benefit concert at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Proceeds from the ticket sales to this historic concert event will support Ali Forney Center, Immigration Equality, and SAGE – three leading organizations in the LGBTQIA+ movement based in New York City.

Whoopi Goldberg will host the ceremony, featuring a growing medley of acclaimed speakers and performers.

Cyndi Lauper, iconic performer for the LQBTQIA+ community and New Yorkers alike, leads the initial release of the talent line-up.

Chaka Khan, one of the world’s most gifted and celebrated musicians, will also perform at the WorldPride Opening Ceremony.

Ciara, a Grammy  Award-winning singer/songwriter, producer, model and actress has sold more than 23 million records and 16 million singles worldwide, including chart-topping hits “Goodies,” “Ride,” “Oh,” “1, 2 Step,” “Body Party,” and “I Bet.”

Billy Porter  is a Tony  and Grammy Award-winning actor, singer, director, composer, and playwright from Pittsburgh, PA. He currently stars as ‘Pray Tell’, in in the FX series “Pose,” for which he has received both a Golden Globe and Critics Choice nomination for Best Actor in a Drama Series.

Todrick Hall is a multi-talented singer, rapper, actor, director, choreographer, and YouTube personality who rose to prominence on American Idol.

The Ali Forney Center is the nation’s largest and most comprehensive agency dedicated to LGBTQ homeless youths—assisting nearly 1,800 young people per year through a 24-hour Drop-In Center, which provides over 65,000 meals annually, medical and mental health services through an on-site clinic, and a scattered-site housing program.

SAGE is the world’s largest and oldest organization dedicated to improving the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) older people. Founded in 1978, and headquartered in New York City, SAGE is an organization that offers supportive services and consumer resources to LGBT older people and their caregivers.

Immigration Equality is the nation’s leading LGBTQ immigrant rights organization, representing and advocating for people from around the world fleeing violence, abuse and persecution because of their sexual orientation, gender identity or HIV status.

The powers that be have added even more talent to make June 26th an unforgettable evening at the Barclays Center!

Catch Alyssa Edwards, Alaska Thunderfuck, Shangela, Yvie Oddly, and Bob the Drag Queen this Wednesday at our benefit concert supporting Immigration Equality, SAGE, and Ali Forney Center.

Have you purchased your tickets to the WorldPride Opening Ceremony yet? Click here for info.

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Billy Porter To Be Honored With Star On The Hollywood Walk Of Fame

Billy Porter, currently starring in the second season of the acclaimed FX series Pose, has been announced to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, according to Variety.

The category is: Hollywood!

Billy Porter, currently starring in the second season of the acclaimed FX series Pose, has been announced to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, according to Variety. 

The Golden Globe nominee will be honored at an induction ceremony in Los Angeles at a date to be announced.

After spending the 1990s appearing in Broadway musicals like Grease, Smokey Joe’s Cafe, Five Guys Named Moe, and Miss Saigon, Porter took a hiatus from the Great White Way. He said he was tired of being trotted out to center stage to sing a show stopping number but never being given the chance for meatier roles.

In 2017, he penned an essay for the New York Times explaining his decision to turn down those stereotypical roles writing, “It was time to lay down the clown games of my past and find a new dream.”

For years he waited for opportunities, begging for a chance to be seen for roles like the Emcee in Cabaret, and the title role in Hedwig and the Angry Inch. But, to no avail.

So he stepped back, and decided to create his own stories.

He enrolled in a screenwriting course at UCLA; he became an artist-in-residence at the Public Theater in New York City where he would create his one-man show, Ghetto Superstar.

He finally got his chance at a heavy-duty role when he was cast in the 2010 off-Broadway revival of Angels in America in the role of “Belize.” As Porter says, “It took me 15 years to do so, but the game had officially been changed.”

Then in 2012, Broadway came calling with a star-making role – drag queen “Lola” in the new musical Kinky Boots. Playing to all of his strengths, he broke through to a whole new level snatching up the Tony Award for ‘Best Actor in a Musical’ in 2013.

In 2018, at an audition for the role of the dance teacher for the then-in-development Pose, Porter told casting directorAlexa Fogel he didn’t feel the role spoke to him.

Having lived through the heyday of the 1980s ball culture during the height of the AIDS epidemic, Porter suggested a new role – a paternal, ‘daddy’ character to help usher the inhabitants of the ballroom through their struggles.

“Would you like to have a daddy in the room?,” said Porter.

Weeks later, Fogel rang Porter up and said producer Ryan Murphy agreed with his idea. Porter was asked to come in with his version of the emcee from the film Paris Is Burning.

The rest, as they say, is history.

With all his recent successes, Porter is still creating in the theater.

He is the author of the 2014 off-Broadway play, While I Yet Live, as well as Untitled Sex Project, scheduled to premiere off-Broadway this fall with Porter in a starring role.

Additionally, he will direct Dan McCabe’s world premiere play The Purists at Boston’s Huntington Theatre Company this summer.

Congratulations, Billy!

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Video: Check Out The Sexy Highlights From ‘Broadway Bares 2019’

Cast members of ‘Broadway Bares: Take Off’
(photo: Billy Bustamante) 

Broadway’s sexiest event of the year, Broadway Bares, offered a spectacular romp around the world this past weekend, and we’ve got the video to prove it.

Over two performances at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City Sunday night, Broadway’s hottest dancers raised a record-breaking $2+ million for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS is one of the nation’s leading industry-based, nonprofit AIDS fundraising and grant-making organizations. Thanks to BC/EFA, men, women and children across the country receive lifesaving medications, health care, nutritious meals, counseling and emergency financial assistance.

This year’s theme, Broadway Bares: Take Off, featured nearly 200 performers onstage including Tony & Grammy Award winner Billy Porter, two-time Tony nominee Christopher Sieber, GLEE alum Alex Newell and Grammy/Tony nominee Ashley Park.

Check out the highlights reel:

The travel theme allowed the creators to take the audience on a sexy, sensual, fun-filled trip around the world.

One number, titled “Ground Crew,” showed what happens when a flight is delayed on the tarmac and the all-male ground crew has to sweat through their shift.

Led by Adam Perry, the number (choreographed by Andrew Turteltaub) featured buff baggage handlers taking care of business.

Other highlights included a sexy ‘mile-high club’ number; an all-female excursion through Amsterdam’s Red Light district; and a Parisian fashion show led by Pose star Billy Porter that evolved into a vogueing battle.

With this year being the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, the show’s travels ended (where else?) with a performance set in the historic Stonewall Inn.

Porter also returned at the end of the show to perform his new Pride anthem, “Love Yourself.”

Addressing the packed crowd, Porter spoke passionately of “community” and “unbowed determination.”

“Broadway Bares is about the joy of community, the love we share and the care we show for each other,” said the Tony Award winning actor. “These are both glorious and difficult days. We have so much to celebrate and be proud of. But at the same time we are surely shaken, angry and saddened by the cruelty, inequality and torrent of lies that confront us on a daily basis.”

“But as I look over this beautiful audience and see thousands standing together, unbowed, we will not be dismissed or demeaned. For we are empowered by love, determination and courage,” he continued. “We will not be stigmatized for the very things that make us beautiful, expressive beings.”

And yes, it does take a village. In addition to the 200 onstage performers, backstage there were 41 stage managers and 700 volunteers, including 70 MAC makeup artists, all helping to make the magic.

With 29 editions of the ‘striptacular’ event now on the books, Broadway Bares has raised an amazing $21.1 million for BC/EFA.

Since its founding in 1988, BC/EFA has raised over $300 million for essential services for people with AIDS and other critical illnesses.

Just to give you a sense of how massive the event is, here’s a clip from the finale via Broadway Bares creator, Tony Award winning director/choreographer Jerry Mitchell:

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Podcast: Ricky Martin, Brazil, Music & Sexual Positions, Billy Porter’s New Pride Anthem

In this week’s podcast:

• Ricky Martin helps kill a religious freedom bill in Puerto Rico

• Brazil’s high court adds homophobic and transphobic crimes to the South American country’s racism laws

• We remember that bisexuals are part of Pride Month, too

• Do your music preferences reveal if you like the top or bottom bunk?

• Grammy Award winner Billy Porter drops a new LGBTQ Pride anthem

All that and more in this episode of The Randy Report podcast.

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Acclaimed FX Series POSE Picked Up For 3rd Season

Billy Porter in ‘Pose’

Whoohoo!!!

TVLine reports the awesome news that LGBTQ-drama Pose has been picked up for a 3rd season, less than a week after the show’s Season 2 premiere.

The series, which tells the story of New York City’s ‘ball culture’ during the height of the AIDS epidemic. The series boasts the largest number of transgender season regulars in television history.

The June 11th season two premiere was the most-watched telecast of the series, drawing 1.2 million total viewers and 572,00 adults ages 18-49, generating series high ratings in total viewers.

Season 2 kicked off last Tuesday, with a time jump to 1990 and the release of Madonna’s “Vogue,” which shone a spotlight on the ball community.

“Pose has elevated our culture and the TV landscape like few shows before it,” FX chairman John Landgraf said in a statement, “and we are honored to partner with co-creators Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Steven Canals on a third season.”

Series star Billy Porter and the series itself were nominated at the Golden Globe Awards this year.

Personally, I’m thrilled. I think the series is not only delivering important history to a television audience, but many of the performances are just sensational.

Congrats to the whole Pose posse!

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Pride Music: Taylor Swift “You Need To Calm Down”

Taylor Swift dropped her awesome new music video for “You Need To Calm Down” and it’s packed to the gills with LGBTQ stars, celebs and personalities.
Taylor Swift in “You Need To Calm Down”

Taylor Swift dropped her awesome new music video for “You Need To Calm Down” and it’s packed to the gills with LGBTQ stars, celebs and personalities.

Featured in the video are Ellen DeGeneres, Laverne Cox, Karamo Brown, Antoni Porowski, Jonathan van Ness, Bobby Berk, Tan France, Ciara, RuPaul, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and husband Justin Mikita, Billy Porter, Adam Lambert, Adam Rippon, Ryan Reynolds, Hayley Kiyoko, Todrick Hall, Chester Lockhart, Dexter Mayfield, Hannah Hart, and Katy Perry.

Billy Porter

The song shows Taylor’s “all-in” support for the LGBTQ community as the video is full of plastic wading pools, crowns for queens, bouncy beats, glitter, and queer references like GLAAD and shade.

The music video’s release arrives just weeks after Swift shared an open letter to her Republican Tennessee U.S. senators calling for their support for the Equality Act, which would add sexual orientation and gender identity to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

And Friday night, she surprised folks at the historic Stonewall Inn with an impromptu performance of her mega-hit “Shake It Off.”

The climax of the vid is an epic trailer park food fight followed by the message:

“Let’s show our pride by demanding that, on a national level, our laws truly treat all of our citizens equally.

“Please sign my petition for Senate support of the Equality Act on Change.org.

Go, Taylor, go!

RuPaul

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Billy Porter: If I Want To Wear A Dress, I’m Wearing A Dress

Billy Porter (L) on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Tony and Grammy Award winner Billy Porter dropped by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert this week to chat on his renowned red carpet looks, the power and politics of fashion, and his acclaimed FX series Pose.

Porter also took the time to give Colbert a little fashion ‘shug’ via designer accessories.

It’s a fun segment, but Porter does get to make some important points about how people view men’s and women’s fashion as political statements.

Stephen Colbert

Remembering Hollywood legend Katherine Hepburn’s penchant for wearing pants back when women simply didn’t do that, it was viewed as “powerful.”

But as Billy says, a man flips the script, puts on a dress, and it’s called “disgusting.”

And why is that? Because men’s clothing is perceived as ‘strong’ while women’s fashion is seen as ‘weak?’

Good questions to think on.

Billy also noted that Jesus wore a dress. So there.

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Pride Music: Billy Porter “Love Yourself”

Tony and Grammy Award-Winner Billy Porter releases his new gospel-tinged single “Love Yourself” right on time for Pride Month.
Billy Porter

Tony and Grammy Award-Winner Billy Porter releases his new gospel-tinged single “Love Yourself” right on time for Pride Month.

“I’m thrilled to be spreading the message of self-love to my community whose humanity and worth have been up for legislation for way too long,” says Porter about the release. “On this 50th anniversary of Stonewall I’m proud to unite with my LGBTQ brothers & sisters to remind the world that we’re here and we ain’t goin’ nowhere. Love always wins!”

During World Pride programming this year, Porter will serve as co-host of ABC’s telecast of the Pride March in New York City, and will serve as one of the Grand Marshals alongside his POSE co-stars.

In addition, Porter will serve as Master of Ceremonies for CFDA and Susanne Bartsch’s Love Ball III, taking place on June 25th at Gotham Hall in New York City.

This is what we need on this fab Friday. Hit play and bounce.

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Pride Music: Billy Porter “Edelweiss”

When Tony Award winner & Pose star Billy Porter released his take on the Rodgers & Hammerstein classic, “Edelweiss,” he shared in the social media post:

The Edelweiss flower blooms in the cold and snow and reminds us that we can and must flourish in the darkest of times.

Billy chose to release the track as the lead single from his new album, Billy Porter Presents: The Soul of Richard Rodgers, as the last presidential election has just occurred – and he was concerned.

Of course, now, we can see Billy was wise to be worried.

The recording was on my mind today as I was thinking about the beginning of Pride Month.

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Podcast: Brazil’s Good News, Kenya’s Bad News, ‘Downton Abbey’ Teases A Gay Romance

In this podcast:

• Brazil’s high court says the South American country’s anti-discrimination laws have to include LGBTQ protections

• Kenya’s highest court ruled the African nation’s anti-homosexuality laws aren’t discriminatory

• Texas Republicans passed their “license to discriminate” bill

• Matt Zarley & Billy Porter serve up their take on 1990s empowerment anthem “You Gotta Be”

• And the new trailer for the upcoming Downton Abbey movie reveals a gay romance amid a royal visit

All that and more in this episode of The Randy Report