By Ellen McCarthy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 13, 2008

Dan Guerrero owes an awful lot to a certain hot tub.

The one at his spa, where he sat soaking when it came to him like divine inspiration: "I suddenly thought 'Gaytino!' " he excitedly recalls. "I'm a gaytino. Hell! That's a good little phrase."

He toweled off, got his trademark attorney on the line and set about to write a show: a one-man show that has traveled from that West Hollywood hot tub to stages across the country, stopping Tuesday and Wednesday at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater.

"To be at the Kennedy Center! Do you know how big this is? A show called 'Gaytino!' " he exclaims on the phone from his California home. "I'll be on stage singing about César Chávez and my dad and Chicano history and being gay in the '50s in East L.A. on the stage of the Kennedy Center. It's huge. It's huge to me."

After that eye-opening sauna session, Guerrero went home and made two lists: one highlighting his experiences as a gay man, the other as a Latino and son of Lalo Guerrero, the "father of Chicano music." Guerrero's teen rebellion entailed rejecting his parents' music and embracing Broadway musicals.

At first chance, he moved to New York to take a crack at a career in song and dance. Middling success led to a life as a Big Apple talent agent, representing a strange cast of characters, including Sarah Jessica Parker, then a child actor.

Burnout drew him back to the West Coast, and middle age drew him back to the culture he'd first rebuffed.

"You get to an age where you embrace your roots and your heritage," he explains. The third act of his career was spent producing television and stage productions that celebrate Latino culture in the United States.

All of that led to "Gaytino!"

"Both those communities, the gay and the Latino, have made tremendous strides in the last few years. . . . But at the same time, we each have a long, long, long road in front of us," he says. "So there were a lot of similarities. Having lived in both worlds, I could see them. And I had personal stories that dealt with each of those things."

So in spring 2006, Guerrero, who hadn't been onstage since 1973, brought up the lights on the show of his life.

"You can't cure a ham," he says. "It's in my blood."

Gaytino! Kennedy Center Terrace Theater, 2700 F St. NW. 202-467-4600.http://www.kennedy-center.org. Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. $38. Gaytino! Kennedy Center Terrace Theater, 2700 F St. NW. 202-467-4600.http://www.kennedy-center.org. Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. $38.