Broadway veteran Cheyenne Jackson was able to take one other break from musical theater as he had finished as soon as earlier than. That’s till he acquired a suggestion he couldn’t refuse.

“Oh, Mary!” director Sam Pinkleton needed him for a starring function in a revival of the Tony Award-winning musical “La Cage aux Folles” on the Pasadena Playhouse.

“I had made the choice — a couple of week previous to getting the decision from Sam — that I used to be going to take an extended sabbatical from musical theater once more,” says Jackson, additionally identified by TV followers for his work on “Physician Odyssey,” “Name Me Kat,” “American Horror Story” and “30 Rock.” “I had taken a couple of 10-year break earlier than, and I used to be feeling like, ‘OK, I’ve scratched that itch so much.’ I simply did ‘As soon as Upon a Mattress’ and ‘Into the Woods’ and I used to be finished. I wish to give attention to writing. I wish to give attention to a variety of different issues. Sam calls me and, in fact, I learn about ‘Oh, Mary!’ He was very persuasive. He instructed me his imaginative and prescient and I acquired on board.”

Jackson stars as Georges, the proprietor of a drag membership within the South of France, who’s requested by his son Jean-Michel (Ryan J. Haddad) to faux to be straight for one evening to satisfy his fiance’s (Shannon Purser) mother and father (Michael McDonald and Nicole Parker) as a result of his future father-in-law is a conservative politician cracking down on the queer neighborhood and calling for the shutdown of drag golf equipment. Hilarity ensues when Georges’ longtime companion and the membership’s reining drag queen, Albin (Kevin Cahoon), exhibits up on the household gathering as Jean-Michael’s matronly aunt.

Rounding out the primarily LGBTQ forged are George Salazar as Albin’s maid Jacob, together with an ensemble of drag queens and gender-bending performers because the membership’s Les Cagelles.

“It’s all so queer,” Jackson says. “It’s like an enormous homosexual glitter bomb that I get to be part of each evening. It’s the right remedy for me.”

“La Cage aux Folles” is tailored from a play and the cult basic 1978 French comedy film of the identical title. Director Mike Nichols and author Elaine Could’s American characteristic adaptation, “The Birdcage,” starred Robin Williams and Nathan Lane.

“I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve by no means seen the French film or any manufacturing of ‘La Cage,’” Jackson says. “I used to be all the time in a present when ‘La Cage’ was on Broadway so I used to be by no means capable of see it. I’ve solely seen ‘Birdcage.’”

The revival opened lower than two weeks after Donald Trump was re-elected. “Right here we’re speaking about this politician who’s making an attempt to shut down all of the drag golf equipment and making an attempt to impose his morality on folks,” Jackson says. “The present couldn’t be extra well timed.”

“La Cage aux Folles” runs by way of Dec. 15 on the Pasadena Playhouse. For tickets, go to pasadenaplayhouse.org.