Cheyenne Jackson Brings Signs of Life to Houston’s Hobby Center

Saying he wanted to branch out beyond concerts and cabaret work, performer Cheyenne Jackson (American Horror Story, Glee) explained how he came to write “a riskier” act that not only showcases his singing talents but allows his audiences to know so much more about him.

“I felt much more exposed, I felt much more connected with the audience,” he says. “The idea for the show was really based on something my dad taught me very early on  and that is to look for the signs. The signs of life, the signs from God or the universe or nature. Signs that you are where you’re supposed to be and you’re doing what you are supposed to be doing. That’s the kind of skeleton if it but then I fill it with all kinds of crazy stuff.

Jackson is coming to the Hobby Center’s Zilkha Hall as part of the Beyond Broadway series for one night only with his show Cheyenne Jackson: Signs of Life. With credits that include  Call Me Kat as well as the Saved By The Bell revival, American Horror Story: Apocalypse and Disney’s Descendants 3, is known as a versatile performer

Part of the Beyond Broadway series lineup, the show was written by Jackson as a long form cabaret. He says the reception has been so good that he plans to continue with this program.

“I think people maybe didn’t expect it to be so personal and didn’t expect it to be so open. And I believe that in order to really maintain a connection you have to go first as a performer. So right off the top of the show I take the wind out of myself. And this really shows them that we’re going to be in this thing together and the reaction’s been great.”

I talk about my kids. My kids are hysterical and they’re going to be 8 next week. My husband and I have twins, a boy and a girl. Father hood adventures. I also talk about moving to New York and what that was like. I talk about my late great friend Leslie Jordan who passed a couple of years ago. It seems a little scattery, but it’s not. There’s a method to my madness.

Asked why he had children with such a busy life as a performer, Jackson says: “All I ever wanted was to have kids. I just needed to find the right person. I met my husband 12 years ago at 39. So we met and about a year and a half later we were married and had kids on the way. It’s incredible.”

“I play this character Hades in Disney movie The Descendants so that carries a lot of weight with 8 and 9 year olds. As for the other things I’ve done, not impressed.”

During the show he does a little bit of everything. It’s me telling stores and singing some of my favorite songs and talking about like and lessons I’ve learned and telling a bunch of jokes. There’s elements of stand up comedy in it as well. I was not professionally trained as a singer. I was trained by just listening to all types of music always. And I think because of that it really gave me this edge up to kind of sing anything.”

Asked for his favorite songs he says it’s a range. “I do a version of Lady Gaga’s “Edge of Glory.” I do a song by Sam  Smith. I sing a song from the Broadway musical The Full Monty which I really love, has a lot of personal meaning. I sing a song that I wrote, that also seems to be an emotional highlight of the show from people who talk to me afterwards. It’s a song I wrote about my dad. I sing some classic stuff. I sing “Besame Mucho.” So there’s kind of something for everybody.”

He calls the song about his father a very simple song, a song thait’s combined with a story about the coach wanting me to go out ofor the football team and it was definitely something I did not want to do. , It’s about a conversation between me and my dad. It just has become this moment that most people come up and talk to me afterwards. It’s called ‘OK.'”

His audiences range in age, he says, from those who know him through The Descendants to a gay following to an older demographic. “People that love a throwback. It’s been written about me that I was born perhaps in the wrong era and I definitely have an old fashioned kind of vibe in how I sound and how I look,

“But I look out there and I see people of all different everything “

Cheyenne Jackson’s performance is scheduled for October 26 at 7:30 p.m. in Zilka Hall at the Hobby Center, 800 Bagby. For more information, call 713-315-7625 or visit hobbycenter.org. $44-$247.