On opening night of his current engagement at 54 Below, Cheyenne Jackson shared a conversation he had had long ago with his older brother, a pastor. Jackson fretted that he was losing his hair, and his sibling tried to reassure him: “We’re tall. We’re athletic. We have handsome faces.” The younger man—who has since had five transplants, he admitted—was not assuaged. “You’re a pastor,” he pointed out. “I’m an actress!”
Jackson, who will turn 50 next year, is still tall and handsome; those assets, along with a capacity for self-effacing humor and a rangy baritone that’s as clear and smooth as it is robust, have enabled him to work regularly on Broadway, in roles ranging from the romantic lead in Finian’s Rainbow to the Wolf and Cinderella’s Prince in Into the Woods. His breakout turn, notably, was as a motorcycle-riding, guitar-playing hunk, modeled after Elvis, in the jukebox musical All Shook Up.
At 54 Below, Jackson did indulge the crowd with “A Little Less Conversation,” a Presley hit featured in the last show that has become a signature song for this stage star, also known for his stints on TV series such as “Call Me Kat,” “American Horror Story” and “30 Rock.” “Just like Liza has to always do ‘Cabaret’ and Kristin Chenoweth has to do ‘Popular,’ I have to do this,” quipped Jackson, who then duly swiveled his hips and wandered offstage to flirt, wholesomely, with fans.
But for Jackson’s “second annual residency” at the venue, as he put it, he also had more serious matters in mind. Titled “Signs of Life,” the show found him reflecting, often at length, on his youth, his ten-year marriage, fatherhood, and other relationships that have become increasingly meaningful as time passes. “I almost feel like things don’t matter as much,” he mused, “and things matter more than ever.”
Jackson recalled growing up in the tiny community of Old Town, Idaho, where the French teacher was considered a cultural authority because she had traveled all the way to Seattle. He remembered how a production of Les Misérables had blown him away as a young teenager, even though he wouldn’t move to New York to pursue his dream until he was 27.
If some of these yarns could stretch on a bit, they always resolved in impeccable performances. Accompanied only by his music director, Paul Staroba, on piano, Jackson segued from the pop staple “Stand by Me” to buoyant takes on tunes from The Full Monty and the film Sleepless in Seattle. The latter, “A Wink and a Smile,” followed a couple of charming anecdotes about Jackson’s daughter—he and his husband have twins, a boy and a girl—who’s just about to turn eight and is already a pistol.
Jackson acknowledged his spouse before he dove into the bolero “Bésame Mucho,” caressing the low notes seductively. Leon Russell’s “A Song For You” was dedicated to the late Leslie Jordan, Jackson’s co-star on “Kat”; introducing the Sam Smith single “Lay Me Down,” Jackson thought of friends “going through some impossible health stuff,” and encouraged the audience to do likewise: “Let’s all collectively think about them and lift them up.”
Jackson welcomed another silver-voiced Broadway vet, the radiant Nikki Renée Daniels, for a duet of “Written in the Stars” from Aida, a show that found both stars work as understudies earlier in their careers. After closing the set with Lady Gaga’s “The Edge of Glory,” he selected for encores Jason Robert Brown’s “Hope” and Jerry Herman’s “I Am What I Am”; Jackson will play Georges in an upcoming revival of La Cage aux Folles at Pasadena Playhouse, he revealed, but he wanted a stab at Albin’s showstopper first.
The most moving number, however, was one that Jackson had written himself, inspired by the time his father, urged by a school football coach who thought the young Jackson’s height made him a natural prospect, took him to watch the team practice. Titled simply “O.K.,” the song recalls how the singer’s dad—a native American, Vietnam vet, cop, and manly man in every respect—let his nervous son know that he didn’t need to play ball to score his approval.
The chorus recaptures the message as such: “It’s O.K. that you are gentle/It’s O.K. that you are kind/And it’s OK that you don’t want to play like them/Be yourself and I’ll be fine.” Clearly, this advice has served Jackson and his admirers well.
Cheyenne Jackson: Signs of Life opened September 23, 2024, at 54 Below and runs through September 29. Tickets and information: 54below.com
