Most performers would be happy to have a fraction of Jade Esteban

Estrada's career. As a choreographer he's worked with Charo. As a recording artist, he's renowned in Latin pop (you might have heard his music playing in the background if you watch the FX police drama "The Shield"). As a comedian, he appears regularly on Comedy Central's "Graham Norton Effect."

     "You can break it down to one thing," he said in a phone interview from San Antonio, his hometown. "I'm a showman." His roots cover everything from ballet folklorico to opera to stand-up.

     Mix those with a passion for history and you have the ingredients for his one man show, "ICONS: The Lesbian and Gay History of the World, Vol. 1."

     "I love history," he said, "especially the forgotten side of history. I wanted to bring together my love of history with my love of equal rights, and I wanted to compose a show based on all things I do best."

     So "ICONS" was born. It's a mix of music, comedy and dance that brings to life six gay and lesbian figures from the past and present: Sappho, Michelangelo, Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, Ellen DeGeneres and Sylvia Rivera (the gay activist who started the Stonewall Riots that became the flashpoint for the gay rights movement).

     "I believe that nothing you do in life is ever wasted," said Estrada, "so I put together all the things I do. Sappho does a lot of stand-up. Oscar Wilde has a tap dance. And Gertrude Stein has a very dramatic, almost operatic, segment."