Darren Criss brings his Christmas show to Orlando’s Dr. Phillips Center

Emmy-winning actor Darren Criss is fine if the title of his upcoming holiday concert inspires a dad-joke groan from you. He gets it — but maintains with a laugh that the title was a pre-emptive strike to silence future critics.

“It was mainly so I didn’t have to explain to people years from now why I didn’t do it,” he says cheerfully, noting that it was just the obvious choice to go with “a painfully convenient pun on my last name.”

The star who catapulted to fame on TV’s “Glee,” is bringing his “A Very Darren Crissmas” (groan here) to Orlando, where he’ll play Steinmetz Hall at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts on Nov. 29.

Criss has performed at the downtown arts center before; he participated in 2016’s “From Broadway With Love,” a star-studded benefit by theater actors to benefit victims of the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub. At the time, he spoke with me about how privileged he felt to have the chance to offer “support to the victims, their families and the community at large.”

For this visit, under happier circumstances, he has a different goal: Bringing the holiday spirit to Central Florida.

“Performing arts in my mind is a service industry,” he says. “It’s an honor to service the nostalgic, the good vibes, the feels you are looking for during the holidays.”

Criss grew up in San Francisco — “I like a gray Christmas. I grew up in a biodome of fog,” he jokes — and his family had their own holiday traditions. For one, there was the goose.

Criss’s father was particularly fond of dining on a Christmas goose with all the trimmings.

“Like we were in ‘ye olde London,'” he says. “I always joked that my dad was straight out of a Dickensian holiday.”

Another memory may resonate with any child stifling yawns while waiting for midnight Mass — and wishing Santa would get a move on.

“Oh, trying to stay awake for that,” recalls Criss, “and wanting to go to sleep so it would be time for presents.”

But his main memory is the music.

“Everybody has their own relationship with the holidays,” he says. “Mine is particularly the music.”

Criss, 36, released his “Very Darren Crissmas” album in 2021. It contains standards such as “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” novelty songs like “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas,” swinging hits like “Everybody’s Waitin’ for the Man With the Bag” and original tunes as well.

Criss was especially interested in introducing listeners to new music.

“If I had my way, this would have been an album of a hundred songs no one knows,” he says with a laugh.

“I like to minimize the distance between foreign and familiarity,” he explains. “It’s just kind of the way I operate, the way my brain works.”

He enjoyed the fact the the album wasn’t locked into one particular musical style.

“That’s what’s nice about a Christmas album: It’s one of the few times where eclecticism is actually encouraged,” he says, pointing out that listeners expect variety in their holiday music. “When you’re shopping at Macy’s you hear songs in different genres and you’re not put off because they’re tied together by Christmas.”

Despite his strong connection with music, Criss considers himself an actor first, a singer second.

“Any time I have to sing, it’s still a huge learning curve to me,” he says. And he compares himself unfavorably against his circle of friends, which features “Grade A, USDA-certified singers with a capital S,” he says. “They are singers.”

Though he has done high-profile musical work — leading roles in Broadway’s “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” and “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” as well as his work as show-choir star Blaine on “Glee” — he points out he’s done “a lifetime of plays.”

His latest Broadway turn was in 2022, in a revival of David Mamet’s “American Buffalo.” Starring opposite Sam Rockwell and Laurence Fishburne was “a dream come true,” he says.

His Emmy came from a decidedly nonmusical role — starring as sociopathic killer Andrew Cunanan in “The Assassination of Gianni Versace,” a 2018 miniseries for FX’s “American Crime Story.” The role also earned him a Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice and Screen Actors Guild awards.

He doesn’t distinguish between musical and nonmusical roles: “It’s all fun,” he says, “it’s all storytelling.” But his “dream is to be doing the great American masterpieces on the stage.”

Touring his Christmas music provides some of the same thrill as acting in a play: “I’m all about the in-person catharsis, ‘you have to be there,'” he says, and he has seen how stirring up holiday memories can evoke strong emotions in audience members.

Married since 2019, Criss and wife Mia welcomed a daughter last year. That means Criss is now the dad making holiday memories for the next generation, Christmas goose optional.

“It’s the inevitable sequel,” he says. “To facilitate that for someone you love.”

‘A Very Darren Crissmas’

• When: 7:30 p.m. Nov. 29

• Where: Steinmetz Hall at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, 445 S. Magnolia Ave. in Orlando

• Cost: $34.50 and up

• Info: drphillipscenter.org

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