Broadway veteran Cheyenne Jackson was ready to take another break from musical theater as he had done once before. That is until he got an offer he couldn’t refuse.
“Oh, Mary!” director Sam Pinkleton wanted him for a starring role in a revival of the Tony Award-winning musical “La Cage aux Folles” at the Pasadena Playhouse.
“I had made the decision — about a week prior to getting the call from Sam — that I was going to take a long sabbatical from musical theater again,” says Jackson, also known by TV fans for his work on “Doctor Odyssey,” “Call Me Kat,” “American Horror Story” and “30 Rock.” “I had taken about a 10-year break before, and I was feeling like, ‘OK, I’ve scratched that itch a lot.’ I just did ‘Once Upon a Mattress’ and ‘Into the Woods’ and I was done. I want to focus on writing. I want to focus on a lot of other things. Sam calls me and, of course, I know about ‘Oh, Mary!’ He was very persuasive. He told me his vision and I got on board.”
Jackson stars as Georges, the owner of a drag club in the South of France, who is asked by his son Jean-Michel (Ryan J. Haddad) to pretend to be straight for one night to meet his fiance’s (Shannon Purser) parents (Michael McDonald and Nicole Parker) because his future father-in-law is a conservative politician cracking down on the queer community and calling for the shutdown of drag clubs. Hilarity ensues when Georges’ longtime partner and the club’s reining drag queen, Albin (Kevin Cahoon), shows up at the family gathering as Jean-Michael’s matronly aunt.
Cheyenne Jackson and Kevin Cahoon in “La Cage aux Folles” at the Pasadena playhouse.
Rounding out the primarily LGBTQ cast are George Salazar as Albin’s maid Jacob, along with an ensemble of drag queens and gender-bending performers as the club’s Les Cagelles.
“It is all so queer,” Jackson says. “It’s like a big gay glitter bomb that I get to be a part of every night. It’s the perfect therapy for me.”
“La Cage aux Folles” is adapted from a play and the cult classic 1978 French comedy movie of the same name. Director Mike Nichols and writer Elaine May’s American feature adaptation, “The Birdcage,” starred Robin Williams and Nathan Lane.
Cheyenne Jackson and Ryan J. Haddad in “La Cage aux Folles” at the Pasadena Playhouse.
“I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve never seen the French movie or any production of ‘La Cage,’” Jackson says. “I was always in a show when ‘La Cage’ was on Broadway so I was never able to see it. I’ve only seen ‘Birdcage.’”
The revival opened less than two weeks after Donald Trump was re-elected. “Here we are talking about this politician who’s trying to close down all the drag clubs and trying to impose his morality on people,” Jackson says. “The show couldn’t be more timely.”
“La Cage aux Folles” runs through Dec. 15 at the Pasadena Playhouse. For tickets, go to pasadenaplayhouse.org.
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