The legendary performer Zoe Caldwell gave her assistant Jade Esteban

Estrada, who was just starting out, a piece of advice: "Jade, to be a great actor, you must do everything."

     Now he's a Comedy Central veteran, an accomplished musician, performer and author who basically has done everything.

     "I really started to realize that nothing I did in my life was wasted," he said in a phone interview from his home in San Antonio. "I tap dance in my shows, I speak Spanish in my shows, I sing in my shows in many different ways and I have to make people laugh."

     Estrada has made a career from playing off two of his more dominant characteristics. He showcases two of his shows tonight and Saturday on the Palouse.

     First, he's Latino. Tonight he performs "Tortilla Heaven" – written by his sister, Celeste Angela Estrada, and directed by his brother, David Miguel Estrada – at Washington State University's CUB Ballroom. The performance is sponsored by WSU's Chicano/Latino Center.

     "Everyone has to deal with the fact that Spanish is a growing necessity in our country," he said. "(They are) wherever you are in the country – they're in Idaho, North Carolina – and they don't speak English, and that's what this show is about."

     Second, he's gay. He performs the self-penned "ICONS: The Lesbian and Gay History of the World, Vol. 1" on Saturday at 8 p.m. at the University of Idaho. The performance is sponsored by UI's Gay/Straight Alliance.

     The one-man show finds Estrada acting as gay celebrities, such as Michelangelo, Oscar Wilde and Ellen DeGeneres.

     "I'm not just a comedian anymore; I'm a social commentator," he said. "I realized that people were coming to see me because I was a comedian from Comedy Central, but they were staying to hear me speak because of what I had to say."

     The shows were created to cater to Latinos and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender community, Estrada said. But once he got them on the road, he discovered his message was resonating with straight and non-Latino audiences. He realized, too, that he had unexpectedly become political.

     "The fact that I'm brown is a political statement to some people," he said. "The fact that I'm gay is this huge controversial thing to some people. My mission is to get on stage and make people laugh and entertain them. I think that's what I'm about. Let's talk about it, let's laugh about it, let's move on."
 

©2006 Spokesman-Review