Every week, The GLAAD Wrap brings you LGBT-related entertainment news highlights, fresh stuff to watch out for, and fun diversions to help you kick off the weekend.
1) Modern Family has cast Kelsey Grammer as Keifth, Cam’s enigmatic ex-boyfriend, for an episode scheduled to air in January. Out actor Javier Munoz, currently starring in Hamilton on Broadway, will appear in an upcoming episode of Quantico as a gay character. Nick Westrate (from TURN: Washington’s Spies) will play his husband.
2) CBS has bought a new legal drama, Rebel Law, which focuses on an openly gay attorney who returns to his family’s multi-generational law practice in Mississippi. The Mindy Project’s Ed Weeks and Mindy Kaling, along with out writer Hannah Mackay, are developing a series for ABC which focuses on a progressive lesbian couple who moves back to Kansas with their teenage son. ABC has also bought the pilot for Lakeside VA from out actor Jim Parsons’ production company. The show focuses on a team of VA hospital employees who are “turned in an A team" by a new chief of surgery.
3) A capella group Pentatonix will star in their own hourlong NBC holiday special, A Pentatonix Christmas Special, on December 14 - this comes on the heels of their recently released holiday album, A Pentatonix Christmas. Out group members Scott Hoying and Mitch Grassi recently released a track, "Bad 4 Us," as part of their side project Superfruit.
4) The Sundance Institute awarded more than $1 million to various documentary projects and artists – among them were XY Chelsea, about trans woman Chelsea Manning and her struggle to transition in prison; Justice for Jennifer, about the murder of a trans woman in the Philippines by a U.S. marine; Sylvia and Marsha, about legendary trans advocates Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson; and America in Transition, about trans people in marginalized communities, directed by Andre Perez, founder of the Trans Oral History project.
5) EastLake Community Church, the team behind Together In This, is crowdfunding to cover the production costs for a full-length documentary. After making a public statement for full inclusion of LGBTQ people in January of 2015, the megachurch was almost shut down - their documentary will feature several interviews regarding "the current tension between religious belief and LGBTQ equality within the evangelical Christian church." Find out more at the Together In This Kickstarter page and check out their video below.