Spector, 30, will also open up about his childhood tenure on TV's Star Search, his decision to return to a life of acting and singing, and "little stories here and there about being an idiot" - also known as growing up.
This is not cabaret as usual. His set list ranges from Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson to Led Zeppelin.
Spector respects Frank Sinatra and other artists in the conventional canon, he said, but with this show, hosted by Loews Philadelphia Hotel, he's shooting for a "sort of reinvention of the idea of cabaret."
"Those aren't the songs that inspired me, and I don't think the American songbook has to be limited to those songs," he said.
So the Germantown Academy graduate, who started performing as a child - only to stray from the path after a high-profile TV pilot met a dead end - tells his story through the songs he knows best, similar to the way Jersey Boys gives a musical chronology of the Four Seasons. Bobby Darin and Barry Manilow recall his musical childhood. The Beatles and classic rock signal the coming of age of a self-proclaimed "'80s kid."
"[Jersey Boys] sort of lends itself very well to training for this kind of a thing," he said.
"Minor Fall, Major Lift" - drawn from the Leonard Cohen song "Hallelujah" - hints at Spector's eventual return to an acting career that spans early roles at the Forrest Theatre and Walnut Street Theatre and now more than three years as a lead on Broadway.
The music marks his journey.
"The whole point of the show is that all of these artists influenced me significantly," he said. "I'd like to think that my voice is some sort of gross conglomeration of all of them."
Jarrod Spector
: 8 p.m. Thursday at SoleFood Restaurant and Lounge at the Loews Hotel, 1200 Market St. Free admission. Contact staff writer Matt Huston at 215-854-5289 or mhuston@philly.com.
