Annaleigh Ashford Boards Hulu’s Chippendales Founder Series

Hundreds of people rallied in the rain at Sydney’s Town Hall against the Religious Discrimination Bill on Saturday afternoon.Organised by the Community Action for Rainbow Rights (CARR), speakers included NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge, Sydney Girls High year 10 student Sumaya, and CARR’s co-convenor April Holcombe.Sumaya, who identified as a queer Muslim, rallied the crowd with a passionate call to action, saying, “the Bill means that queer people across all areas of public life must live in fear. At the very best, we hide who we are. At the very worst, we lose everything.”Holcombe spoke of the continuing threat of the Bill, which was indefinitely shelved by the government on Thursday. “It might have been shelved this week, but it is not dead.

EXCLUSIVE: Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale is to host intimate conversation series E.A.T. With Gavin Rossdale, which will see the musician invite celebrities to his home in the Hollywood Hills where he will design, prepare and serve them a three course meal.

NEW YORK -- Afrofuturism is getting a spotlight at Carnegie Hall as the bastion of New York City music and culture takes another step toward normalcy.Grammy Award winner Flying Lotus, also known as FlyLo, makes his Carnegie debut Saturday night to open a two-month Afrofuturism festival, which includes more than 80 events at the hall and partnering institutions."It is something which is kind of hard to explain in a certain way,” said Adriaan Fuchs, Carnegie’s director of festivals and special projects. “But at the same time, it is something which one senses and knows as soon as you see it.”Carnegie was shuttered from March 13, 2020, until last Oct.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterAndrew Rannells has been cast in a recurring role in the upcoming Hulu limited series “Immigrant.”The darkly comedic series tells the true story of Somen “Steve” Banerjee (Kumail Nanjiani), the Indian-American entrepreneur who started Chippendales. Along with Nanjiani and Rannells, the cast also includes Murray Bartlett and Annaleigh Ashford.Rannells will play the rich kid investor in Chippendales New York and the love interest of Bartlett, who stars as producer-choreographer Nick De Noia.Rannells’ recent onscreen roles include “Black Monday” at Showtime and “Girls5Eva” at Peacock.

Andrew Rannells has been tapped for a recurring role in Hulu limited series Immigrant (working title), starring Kumail Nanjiani, Annaleigh Ashford and Murray Bartlett, from Pam & Tommy creator Robert Siegel.

Scotty McCreery visits a familiar location in his new music video.

Chris Willman Music WriterNot many bands can claim they’re having the best year of their career exactly 50 years into their run. All right — not any bands can make such a claim, historically, except for Sparks, which saw its star rise dramatically in 2021 due not to any recording or touring activity but as film creators and stars, with “Annette” and “The Sparks Brothers,” respectively.

previously snagged the rights to the next film by Nikyata Jusu, the director of “Nanny” whose film won the Jury Prize at this year’s Sundance. “Honk for Jesus” is a comedy and satire filmed partially as a faux-documentary, and it follows Pastor Lee-Curtis Childs (Brown) and his wife, First Lady Trinitie Childs (Hall), as the heads of a Southern Baptist mega church as they try and bounce back from a scandal that’s forced them to shut their doors and led their congregation to leave in a mass exodus. The film picks up in the aftermath as the Childs, still insanely wealthy, try and host an Easter service and drum up attention for the community with a feeble attempt telling passers by on the highway to “Honk for Jesus.” The movie satirizes the culture of for-profit religion and the corruption, back biting and ego that goes on behind the scenes.

Annika Pham Versatile Finnish helmer A.J. Annila (“Sauna,” “Shadow Lines,” “Peacemaker”) is on board to direct the thriller series with a working title of “ID” which marks HBO Max’s first commission of a Finnish premium TV show.Set in the art fraud world, the six-part series is co-created by seasoned writer Aleksi Bardy (“Tom of Finland,” “Moscow Noir”) and Mia Ylönen (“Bad Apples,” “Moscow Noir”) for Finnish production powerhouse Helsinki-Filmi, a subsidiary of Finland’s Aurora Studios.“ID” revolves around art fraud investigator Emma who goes undercover to infiltrate an auction house in Stockholm in order to investigate the firm’s connection to a notorious money launderer known as Blanko.

Daniel Ek said exclusive deals like one with Joe Rogan are critical to the company’s business, that he sometimes finds the podcast offensive, but that he doesn’t consider Spotify a “publisher” in terms of bearing responsibility for content it carries.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorSpotify’s staff was up in arms about the company and co-founder/CEO Daniel Ek’s defense of Joe Rogan in a town hall meeting Wednesday that followed its middling quarterly report and subsequent stock drop, according to a report in the Verge that cites a leaked audio recording of the meeting.In Ek’s 15-minute speech, he positioned the company as both a platform and publisher, saying that “There are many things that Joe Rogan says that I strongly disagree with and find very offensive,” he said, but defended the company’s relationship with the controversial podcaster by stating, “If we want even a shot at achieving our bold ambitions, it will mean having content on Spotify that many of us may not be proud to be associated with. Not anything goes, but there will be opinions, ideas, and beliefs that we disagree with strongly and even makes us angry or sad.” Reps for Spotify did not immediately respond to Variety‘s requests for comment.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer“Lucifer” star Tom Ellis has joined the cast of Hulu’s Sterling K. Brown-led “Washington Black” limited series in the role of steam-punk inventor Christopher “Titch” Wilde.Described as an epic nine-episode adventure series based on Esi Edugyan’s novel of the same name, “Washington Black” follows the extraordinary 19th-century adventures of George Washington “Wash” Black, an 11-year-old boy on a Barbados sugar plantation who must flee after a shocking death threatens to upend his life.

Dolly Parton, Pat Benatar, Dionne Warwick, Judas Priest, Beck and Duran Duran are among this year’s nominees for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Clevaland-based Hall announced today.

Hulu has given an eight-episode series order to Up Here, a musical romantic comedy from Tony-winning playwright Steven Levenson (tick, tick… BOOM!), Danielle Sanchez-Witzel (The Carmichael Show, My Name Is Earl), Tony-winning Hamilton director Thomas Kail and Oscar, Emmy and Grammy-winning duo Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez (Frozen, WandaVision). 20th Television and Kail’s Old 320 Sycamore Productions co-produce the series, which is currently casting with production set to begin this summer in New York.

IFC Films and Shudder have taken North American rights to Andrew Semans’ psychological thriller Resurrection starring Rebecca Hall, Tim Roth, Grace Kaufman and Michael Esper.

Two people were left needing hospital treatment today after an incident occurred at Cheetham Hill in Manchester.

Tony winner Annaleigh Ashford has been tapped to star opposite Kumail Nanjiani in Hulu limited series Immigrant (working title), from Pam & Tommy creator Robert Siegel.

Even right down to the title this religious comedy debuting appropriately today on a Sunday  in the Premieres section of the Sundance Film Festival can’t seem to decide what it wants to be. Is it Honk For Jesus.? Or is it Save Our Soul.? OR is it as the credits say both? It is a indication of the main problem with this self-styled satire on scandal-ridden Southern Baptist megachurches. Is it supposed to be a comedy? Or is it aiming to be something deeper and more dramatic?  Or is it both?  Even for the best of satirists trying to keep an even tone without watching the whole souffle fall is a slippery slope, one that writer/director Adamma Ebo hasn’t quite solved, but not for lack of trying. As many have discovered, drama is easy, comedy is hard.