[OutVoice] Tulsa, OK: "Iconocloset"

TheChorusBoy at aol.com TheChorusBoy at aol.com
Sat Nov 10 01:40:26 CST 2007


Tulsa  World

ICONOCLOSET
One-man show  billed as ‘Lesbian and Gay History of the World, Vol. 2’

By  KAREN SHADE
World Scene Writer 
When a critic called the first show “Up With Gay  People,” Estrada decided 
to take a more serious approach. Photo by GUILLERMO  VELEZ 

November 9,  2007


Read it  online:
http://www.tulsaworld.com/entertainment/article.aspx?subjectID=66&articleID=07
1109_8_ES3_hOnem04125


Jade Esteban Estrada needs refuge, and he’s found  it in the San Antonio 
apartment he has rented to store the costumes for his many  live shows. 

But his favorite isn’t there.

Queen Christina, for  the time being, is in temporary exile at the dry 
cleaners.

“How often can  you be a big trailer of a person on stage?” he said by phone 
last week. “I mean,  the dress is like a swimming pool at Liberace’s house.”

Estrada will put  on the gown, the train, crown and the persona of the 17th 
century Swedish  monarch in “ICONS: The Lesbian and Gay History of the World, 
Vol. 2.”

Queen Chris  shares the Nightingale Theater stage Friday and Saturday with 
Alexander the  Great, Susan B. Anthony, Billie Jean King and others in the 
second of Estrada’s  “ICONS” trilogy.

For the man of too many faces to count, “ICONS 2”  gives Estrada a reason to 
visit Tulsa  for the second time in less than three months. He was here with “
Tortilla  Heaven,” about a multigenerational Mexican-American family bridging 
cultural  gaps.

“ICONS 2”  picks up where he left off in 2005, when he brought Oscar Wilde, 
Gertrude Stein,  Ellen DeGeneres, Michelangelo and Sappho to the Nightingale 
in “ICONS … Vol. 1.”

The  second chapter of his musical look at gays and lesbians who changed the 
world,  however, is a near U-turn from its lighter predecessor, he said.

“When I  did ‘ICONS 1,’  a critic in Columbus  (Ohio)  said this – he said 
it in a way that I thought that he wasn’t too crazy about  the way I did (it). 
He called it, like, an ‘Up-with-gay-people kind of show,’  ... I’m like, ‘
Yeah, why not?’” Estrada said.

Estrada is used to splashy  production values, fantastic lighting. He is, 
after all, Charo’s former  choreographer and a stand-up comic/actor/singer/ 
performer featured on such  shows as Comedy Central’s “The Graham Norton Effect,” 
NBC’s “Friday Night  Lights” and “In the Life” on PBS.

“ICONS … Vol. 1,”  he said, reflected that glitzy Vegas-side of his showbiz 
education, but he  admitted that the portrayals nearly left him all “gayed out.
”

“  ‘ICONS…Vol. 2’  is called my serious show because there’s a lot of 
serious issues debated in the  show. You’re talking about 9/11, you’re talking 
about the assassination of  Harvey Milk.

You’re talking about the struggles of Susan B. Anthony,” he  said.

In this show he also portrays Mark Bingham, the United Airlines  Flight 93 
passenger who called his mother in flight to tell her he loved her and  that the 
passengers were about to fight back against terrorists before they died  in a 
pasture in Pennsylvania.

He also becomes Milk, the first openly gay  man to be elected to public 
office in the U.S. Milk was shot in the head at San  Francisco City  Hall in 1978  
by a fellow city supervisor.

Where the conflicts in the first volume  tended to be more personal and deal 
with gay and lesbian issues, the struggles  of the people portrayed in “ICONS 2
”  reach all humanity, he said.

“ICONS 2”  was written by Estrada and directed by David Miguel Estrada. The 
writer and  performer picked up an audience favorite award in solo performance 
at 2004’s  Columbus National Gay and Lesbian Theatre Festival in Ohio.

He  said he hopes to present the trilogy’s third volume in Tulsa someday to 
give us  a glimpse of his Bessie Smith, Greg Louganis and others, but he’s also 
already  thinking about a fourth chapter.

There is more gay and lesbian history  out there than most people realize, 
Estrada said.

“If there is an ‘ICONS  … 4,’  and I’ve been thinking about it, just 
imagine what I’d do,” he  said.


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ICONS:  THE LESBIAN AND GAY HISTORY OF THE WORLD. VOL. 2


When: 8 p.m. Friday  and Saturday

Where: Nightingale Theater, 1416  E. Fourth St.

Tickets  are $10. For reservations, call 633-8666. More information available 
at  www.tulsaworld.com/nightingale 
_www.getjaded.com_ (http://www.getjaded.com/)  



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