Audra McDonald, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Billy Porter, Brandon Victor Dixon, and Joshua Henry are coming together for a revival of SHUFFLE ALONG Or The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed. That's about as glorious a cast as you can manage for a musical.

While most candidates for the Republican nomination seem fine with open transgender service except for Mike Huckabee, Scott Walker decided to slide right and say that there's nothing he would change about the military except to give them the resources they need to win wars. Because 18% of the federal budget isn't enough.

Football star and broadcaster Frank Gifford has passed away at the age of 84. He is survived by his wife Kathie Lee Gifford and his five children.

We spend a lot of time shuttling food up to the International Space Station, but that won't work if we want to get further off the planet, so for the first time this week, astronauts will eat food grown in space. The Romaine lettuce has been growing under LED lamps since spring, and half will be consumed by the astronauts and half will be frozen and shipped back to earth for testing. It does seem that you'd want to test something before you ate it, but that's just me.

A new report says that Bill Murray will make an appearance in Paul Feig's Ghostbusters movie, and Murray was spotted in Boston this week where the movie is filming. Of course, Murray could just be visiting the set, or maybe just in town to crash a wedding or watch a minor league baseball game. He's Bill Murray, you can't predict what he's doing.

The social experiment where a gay couple holds hands while walking in public has made its way to Jerusalem, and things did not go well in a city that just saw a mass stabbing at Pride, not to mention Israel makes a substantial amount of money marketing tourism to the LGBT market.

The media seems to be trying to invent a beef between Miley Cyrus and Talyor Swift over comments she made about Swift's "Bad Blood" video in an interview with Marie Claire. “I don’t get the violence revenge thing. That’s supposed to be a good example? And I’m a bad role model because I’m running around with my titties out? I’m not sure how titties are worse than guns." I don't see that as Miley attacking Swift. I see that as Miley making smart commentary on how sex and violence are treated differently in society. Of course if it is a diss, things are going to be awkward with Miley hosting the MTV Video Music Awards, where "Bad Blood" is up for Video of the Year.

Fantastic Four bombed worse than expected, pulling in $26.2 million for the weekend and opening second to Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation. That means that Marvel's streak of twelve consecutive #1 openings is over. Thanks, Fox.

Warner Bros has bumped two Ben Affleck movies on their schedule, and is said to be finalizing a deal to have him star in and direct a complete Batman trilogy, which will be the definitive Batman. The entire DC Universe will revolve around Batfleck, and will likely tie him up for the next decade, and probably net him Robert Downey, Jr. money for the effort.

In the absence of the victim to testify, the judge in Oregon has moved the trial date for Terry Bean, the HRC founder, accused of having a threeway with a 15 year old he and his boyfriend met on Grindr. The teen, now 17, says he wasn't a victim and doesn't want to testify, and has vanished from the radar of the prosecutors.

The National Association of Black Journalists are feeling the sting after promoting an outing to Paisley Park Studios for their annual convention. Journalists, who paid $20 for the outing, had assumed that Prince would perform, but instead he took the stage and said “Thank you all for coming. Jay Z and I are putting out an album come September 7. He could really use your help and appreciation because he is trying to do something big." Prince then left the stage.

Chick-Fil-A has moved up to #8 on the list of fast food chains based on sales. With only 1,900 locations that are only six days/week, the chain is now bigger than every pizza chain in the country, and each store is raking in more than an average McDonalds. Hate tastes delicious, it seems.

Empire picked up Program of the Year at the Television Critics Awards over the weekend. The Fosters picked up Outstanding Achievement in Youth Programming for the second year, which is fun thinking that a primarily LGBT show wins Youth Programming. That couldn't have happened five years ago.

Benedict Cumberbatch has begun a 12-week run of Hamlet, and after the first show stopped to speak with fans outside the door. He proclaimed his inability to use social media, and urged them to share anything at all about the show in order to promote it. Anything, that is, except media taken during the show. He wants your cell phones off so that he can astound you with his skills, and those red lights are very distracting from the stage. Besides, by today, the theater will have technology to spot the phones, and evict the users, and he'd hate to have someone removed from his show, because then how would he grace them with himself?

The Red State conference was this weekend, where Republican candidates get to make a play for readers who probably already agree with them. All the candidates except Donald Trump, who saw his invitation revoked because of his comments concerning Megyn Kelly coming after him during the debate (because she was on her period). Revoking that invitation caused quite a bit of hate mail for Red State founder Erick Erickson, and he decided to share some of the vile stuff with his audience. It's a bold move, outing your own bigots for ridicule. I'm not sure that you gain anything with moderates, and you risk alienating even more of the bigots that make up your base.

Also at the Red State conference were Mary Katherine Ham, and token out conservative pundit Guy Benson, who were flogging their book about how the left shuts down the conversation on any subject by calling out privilege, bigotry and generally nasty traits in people. They think that the left only wants live and let live when it goes their way. But they don't seem to grasp that the right doesn't want live and let live at all, they want power, and their boots on the throat of anyone they can marginalize for power. I challenge them to try and sell their ideas, as is, but change every instance of "gay" to "black" or "Jew" and see how far they get, even with their own rabid base. And that's not me shutting down the conversation, that's asking them to keep talking. Until they talk themselves off a cliff.

Heroes get all the love in the movies, but they're nothing without a good villain. This is a supercut of villains from 50+ years of movies, and you'll be surprised at how much of what makes them seem evil is held in common. For me it was noticing that they were always filmed from below, making you feel they were looking down on you. But there are many other common traits that filmmakers use to make sure you don't empathize with the wrong guy.

Just a thought, inspired by a picture that probably seemed innocent when Vanity Fair published it.