Chris Angel Secrets

Video | Queer Eye's Jai Rodriguez in South Florida for 'Summer Shorts,' 'Dirty ...

Jai Rodriguez is hardly a wizened showbiz veteran. He’ll turn 32 on June 22, and he’s still young and hot, with plenty of career achievements ahead of him.

But the charismatic Rodriguez, the “culture vulture” from Bravo’s Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, has led an interesting and eventful life so far. And in his engaging, adult-themed cabaret show Dirty Little Secrets, the actor spills the sometimes-surprising details of his journey from questing kid to accomplished man.

In South Florida as the headliner for this year’s edition of City Theatre’s Summer Shorts festival, Rodriguez has built on his popular earlier show xPosed to create a new biographical revue, co-presented by City Theatre and the Out in the Tropics Festival at the Arsht Center’s Carnival Studio Theater.

Dirty Little Secrets features a rocking four-piece band (musical director Eric Alsford on keyboards, Chris Kent on guitar, Martha Spangler on bass and Julie Jacobs on drums) and three singer-dancer-actors who play scenes with Rodriguez and back him up vocally. But even though Secrets is his story, Rodriguez is again generous in making sure his fellow performers have chances to share or claim the spotlight.

Anne Chamberlain, for instance, gets to demonstrate on Katy Perry’s Firework that she has the strongest pop-rock voice in the cast. Alexandra Adomaitis, who also choreographed the show, proves herself an exquisite, versatile dancer. And Michael Joseph, playing the Rent cast member who introduced a teenaged Rodriguez to a new kind of sexual passion, is a sculpted crowd-pleaser.

Staged by John Manzelli and Rodriguez, Dirty Little Secrets follows its star from his youth on Long Island as the son of a deeply religious single mom to his current success as a multifaceted actor and producer of reality television.

The personal and career touchstones all get mentioned: a high school girlfriend who was his first sexual partner, coming out and getting kicked out by his mother, his youthful fulfillment playing the cross-dressing Angel in Rent, his odd audition for Queer Eye as he verbally sparred with Carson Kressley and Ted Allen. Boyfriends and betrayal are part of the narrative too, as are “secrets” that are Rodriguez’s to share.

Yet for all its dramatic and sometimes-sobering shadings, Dirty Little Secrets is upbeat, empowering and entertaining. In large part, that’s because of Rodriguez’s warm stage presence and the songs he and the others sing, a mixture of meaningful show tunes and pop hits. To convey his discomfort at the prospect of sex with his girlfriend, he croons Something About You from Altar Boyz , a song that’s an ode to abstinence. Adomaitis takes it (almost) all off to the title tune from Burlesque. Rodriguez delivers his Rent audition song, an aching One Song Glory, then later joins with the others in singing the anthemic Seasons of Love. Ce-Lo Green’s Forget You (the dirty-lyrics version) and Lady Gaga’s Born This Way help tell Rodriguez’s story too.

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