Many gay actors and singers continue to hide in the closet.

     Not Latin pop singer Jade Esteban Estrada.

     The Texas-bred, New York-based creator and star of the touring one-man musical "ICONS: The Lesbian & Gay History of the World, Vol. 1" is as upfront with his lifestyle as he is portraying Sappho, Oscar Wilde, Michelangelo, Ellen DeGeneres and other "icons" in gay history.

     Indeed, he's turned his lifestyle into a career advantage.

     "I'm not a gay Latin pop singer," Jade, 28, says during a chat in the living room of a Chesterfield County bed-and-breakfast. "I'm a gay man, and I'm a Latin pop singer. There's a big difference."

     Jade, who made his album debut three years ago with "Angel," calls singing his "9-to-5 gig."

     But he's not about to let it limit him.

     He's also an actor, a comic, a dancer, a writer, a composer and an entrepreneur.

     "I'm a showman," he says.

     "I'm making human contact. People in my profession sometimes have to call upon all the different forms of communication to make connections.

     "Comics feel very comfortable when they make people laugh. Dramatists feel very comfortable when they make people cry. Dancers like to wow people with their dancing ability, and singers hypnotize people with song.

     "These are all different ways of touching people's hearts. There's not just one way."

     Striving to make those connections led Jade to create his 75-minute musical tour through gay history in the first place.

     "I travel a lot in Europe and Japan and all over the U.S., and I've seen an entire generation of gay people - or perhaps two or three generations - who were hurt and confused because they had no idea where they belonged in society.

     I've noticed that especially in gay people in their 40s and 50s and 60s. They have such a sense of discomfort and shame at who they are. It broke my heart to see that as an out Latin pop artist, and I'm doing something about it.

     "Sometimes you have to hold a hand mirror to the audience's face to show them what society is and who they are. That hopefully brings about healing. I have no fear doing it because I know I'm doing it for the right reason."

     Jade says he has "three distinct audiences, or four if you get that specific."

     "First, the mainstream audience, which is increasingly accepting, especially in the past year. 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy' did that. Fifty years from now, that show will be seen as a landmark because gay people entered straight people's homes and were invited to stay.

     "Second, my Latin audience. I'm Tex-Mex. That's the nature of my work. Third, the lesbian and gay community. And finally, my beauty pageant following. I've hosted or performed on Miss Universe, Miss America and dozens of other pageants."

     Jade, who was called "the first gay Latin star" by Out magazine, is closely identified with gay communities wherever he goes, but resists being called a gay-rights advocate.

     "That term turns me off," he says. "I'm not about gay rights. I'm about human rights. It was never about Jews or African-Americans or Chicanos. It was always about people being slaughtered and discriminated against."

     "ICONS: The Lesbian & Gay History of the World, Vol. 1," which continues through Saturday at Fielden's Cabaret Theatre under the Richmond Triangle Players banner, premiered 18 months ago on the opening night of the Columbus (Ohio) National Gay and Lesbian Theatre Festival 2002. "Vol. 2" will make its debut at the biennial festival this fall.

     In "Vol. 2," Jade plans to portray figures ranging from Alexander the Great, Queen Christina of Sweden and Walt Whitman to Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of Queen, who died of AIDS in 1991.

     Could this go on forever?

     It could, but it won't.

     "After Vol. 3, I'll be done," Jade says.

©2004 Richmond Times-Dispatch