[OutVoice] St. Louis, MO - "Jade Esteban Estrada Returns to The Lou"

Mon Feb 1 02:56:21 CST 2010

THE VITAL  VOICE
A  Modern and Cultural LGBT Lifestyle Magazine

Jade Esteban Estrada Returns to The  Lou, Feb. 16 in New One-Man-Show

Solo  theatre artist Jade Esteban Estrada. Photo by MAYRA  ALEXANDRA

January 31, 2010   
 (http://thevitalvoice.com/files/images/Jade.jpg) By COLIN  MURPHY 
SENIOR  WRITER 
Read it  online: 
_http://thevitalvoice.com/node/6264_ (http://thevitalvoice.com/node/6264)  
St.  Louis audiences are no  strangers to the many talents of Jade  Esteban 
Estrada. Over the past decade the out and proud showman has  delighted us 
at Pridefest and engaged us with his ICONS (The Lesbian and  Gay History of 
the World) trilogy.  
Estrada wears many creative hats—he is actor, dancer, singer, director,  
playwright, author, teacher and comedian. Indeed, with a love for queer 
history  and an even greater love for his craft, Estrada is the modern American  
Renaissance man.  
On  Feb. 16, the "Master Entertainer" brings his latest offering, A Lullaby 
for  Ryan: The History of HIV/AIDS in America to The Urban Eats Café (3301  
Meramec). The musical comedy introduces us to Boobs (a.k.a. the Bubonic 
Plague);  Jimmy, a real estate agent in New York City in 1981; Rock Hudson; 
Miss Protease  Inhibitor 1996; Bill McPhil, a 53-year-old HIV-positive cowboy 
and LaShonda, an  African-American mother of three in Chicago’s Southside as 
they chronicle the  last quarter-century of the AIDS epidemic in the United 
States with stories of  courage, strength and human triumph.  
Vital VOICE magazine recently  caught up with Estrada via telephone to 
discuss Lullaby, its many  characters, and why he was compelled to pen a comedy 
about  HIV/AIDS. 
Colin Murphy: So you  are returning to St. Louis with A Lullaby for  Ryan- 
Jade Esteban Estrada:  I am and I’m really excited about it. I love the 
show, I really love the show.  It’s a musical comedy and it’s a lot of laughs. 
And a lot of people wonder at  first how can a show about HIV/AIDS be funny—
they’ve got to see the show. A lot  of people who have survived this 
epidemic have tapped into the resource of  laughter.  

Estrada plays Bill  McPhil singing “Bareback.com.” Photo by JASON  
FIENHOLD-HAASIS. 
CM: Is this a show  that you can do now but not necessarily a decade or so 
ago—pre-protease  inhibitor? 
JEE: Yes—that’s a good  point. Before 1996 or even 1998 I don’t think I 
could have come out and done  this. Because when the protease inhibitors came 
out it was a huge shift in the  experience of what HIV/AIDS has been not 
just for our country but the world. So  that was almost a ray of hope that we 
hadn’t had in the past. And it’s certainly  changed everything—it really 
changed everything. It changed it [the disease]  from being, as some people 
say, a death sentence to being a chronic illness.   
CM: How many  characters to you play in this piece? 
JEE: Seven  characters. 
CM: And how do you  transition from character to character? 
JEE: How I transition  from character to character—did you see any of the 
Icons  series? 

Estrada plays “Miss  Protease Inhibitor 1996.” Photo by JASON 
FIENHOLD-HAASIS. 
CM: Yes, I saw part  one. 
JEE: I haven’t changed  necessarily the format of how I do things. I stay 
on stage the whole time and I  slowly transform or sometimes swiftly 
transform from one character to the next.  It’s all seamless. Since I last saw you, I
’ve gotten much better at this  format. 
So I really create  Lullaby and [am] talking about something that has been, 
at least for an  older generation, very taboo—if not for everybody. I felt 
almost like my  Icons was preparation for this kind of dialogue in this 
format.   
CM: Yeah—I was going  to ask if Lullaby was born from Icons? 
JEE: No it’s not. It  was just something that I felt I wanted to write 
about and I hadn’t seen anyone  take that comedic approach to it. Because that’
s what I do—my 9 to 5 now is I’m  a standup comic—and I use humor in every 
aspect of my professional life. I had  been doing so many HIV/AIDS 
organization benefits and events, that it seemed  like a very natural evolution for 
me to start to discuss the face of HIV/AIDS  today in the 21st century. I 
debuted this in December 2007—it was  commissioned by Diamond Foundation of 
Nebraska.  

Estrada plays “Boobs”  aka the Bubonic Plague. Photo by MAYRA ALEXANDRA. 
CM: Do you have a  favorite character you would like to talk about? 
JEE: I absolutely love  the Bubonic Plague—I call her Boobs—and she’s this 
very loud, annoyed Jewish  woman from the 1960s. She carries a pet rat 
named Pookie. She’s just so fabulous  and the audience really, really loves her. 
And what I love about this character  is I have the opportunity to give an 
infection/disease a voice. Everybody talks  about how infections and 
diseases are horrible things but they don’t have a  voice to talk about what they 
want and need.  
There’s this one  moment in the show where I really connect with everybody 
and she’s talking to  them and they’re doing "kawfee talk" and they’re 
talking about this and that and  she says, "You know—I like you. I want to tell 
you a little secret about us  diseases. I probably shouldn’t even be telling 
you this, but there are only two  things that us diseases want to do when 
we get into the human body: survive and  multiply. Repeat after me: survive 
and multiply."  
And usually everybody  says it with her and she says, "I said repeat, but 
whatevah." And she’s  making them laugh, but she’s also having a very 
sobering moment with them—that  diseases are also organisms—they are living 
things that just have a mission. I  enjoy that character very much because I can 
see in the faces of the audience  that they have never had a conversation 
with a disease before. It’s a lot of fun  to portray her because of who she 
represents. I mean the Bubonic Plague is this  big, scary thing that happened 
and to be able to see her in a comedic light and  just trying to do what she 
does—spread her diseases—being kind of clumsy and  crazy and eccentric—it 
kind of gives a face to a big scary monster.   
CM: You also play Rock  Hudson… 
JEE: I do and it’s one  of my favorite roles of all time.  
CM: I was doing the  math and its 25-year’s since his passing. He was a 
tragic figure. Do you think  that people are viewing him in different light 
25-years out from his death?   
JEE: He was the person  to give AIDS a human face and that was a very 
important connection for the  public who had only been hearing these crazy 
stories in the newspapers and on  television and these rumors from other people. 
It didn’t have a human impact  until someone as famous as Rock represented 
what he did at the time that he did  it. He was the biggest star in the world 
and for him to have this experience was  quite shocking at the time.  
…When I actually do  him at the press conference in Paris when he has his 
interview with the press  and sings his song; it’s like reliving that moment 
and I think it brings home  the point that it was a turning point. That 
press conference was a turning point  in peoples understanding of what was 
happening.  

Estrada plays Rock  Hudson. Photo by JASON FIENHOLD-HAASIS. 
CM: A Lullaby for  Ryan is obviously a nod to Ryan White—does his character 
appear in the  show? 
JEE: No he does  not—not as a character. The show is named after him and he’
s mentioned once in  the very beginning of the song and then there’s no 
more mention of him. A lot of  people say Ryan White’s not in the show—why is 
that? And my answer to  that is, I only have 65-75 minutes with my audience. 
My audience is a smart  crowd—I’ve learned who they are over the past 
decade—and my answer to that is  usually, if you don’t know who Ryan White  is 
you need to Google it.  
CM: Last question—you  are also conducting an Acting Master Class while 
here in St. Louis—could you talk  about that? 
JEE: Before I’m a  person, I believe myself to be an actor. I love my craft 
very, very much. And I  have been drawn to directing and teaching acting 
technique for years… Recently I  have been doing my Acting Master Classes—I 
call it “Acting Master Class 2.0”—in  other cities across the country. It’s 
such a wonderful opportunity for me to  connect with my people—and by my 
people, I mean other actors. I’ve been doing  solo theatre for a long time so 
one thing I do know is how to survive on stage  and survive well and create 
and build characters. I really enjoy sharing that  with the next generation 
of actors who will come after me. 
Showtime for "A  Lullaby for Ryan: The History of HIV/AIDS in America" is 
7:00 p.m. Tickets are $15  at the door. Advance tickets are $12 each will be 
available beginning Jan. 13,  at _www.urbaneatscafe.com/tickets_ 
(http://thevitalvoice.com/www.urbaneatscafe.com/tickets)   and can be purchased with 
any credit card or PayPal. A portion of all food and  beverage sales will also 
be donated to the St. Louis GLBT Center.  
For more information  check out _www.getjaded.com_ 
(http://www.getjaded.com/)  or _www.facebook.com/jadeestebanestrada_ 
(http://www.facebook.com/jadeestebanestrada) . 
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