Interview: Derek Hough is 'Living the Dream' with SYMPHONY OF DANCE: ENCORE Tour
The Emmy Award-winner talked about being a theatre kid, his one night in CHICAGO, and more
Derek Hough is back on tour this summer, and you could say the triple-threat superstar doesn’t have to be.
With Emmy Award wins, an acting career – not to mention a new season of Dancing with the Stars airing just a month after his tour concludes – he could undoubtedly spend these months doing anything he wanted. But live performance is Hough’s happy place.
“Going on tour, it really is just living out the dream,” Hough says. “That first moment when the kabuki drops and you feel the crowd roar, the applause – it is just incredible.”
Playing Atlanta’s Cobb Energy Centre this weekend, “Derek Hough Symphony of Dance: Encore” revamps a tour he and his wife, Hayley Hough, did a few years ago. Hough’s team, including famed choreographers Napoleon and Tabitha Dumo, has tweaked most aspects of the show from lighting to choreography while maintaining the song-and-dance essence of the original.
In a treat for fans of the TV show with which his name is synonymous, this version debuts a new song about Derek Hough becoming a judge on Dancing with the Stars.
“It's a big, fun, Broadway production number. We have paddles that we're dancing with and big feather boas,” Hough explains, likening the song to “Friend Like Me” from Aladdin.
Hough had danced with star after star for years and won the coveted “Mirrorball Trophy” a record six times, before exchanging his dancing shoes for judging paddles. He says the song includes DWTS in-jokes and references to people like hosts Alfonso Ribeiro and Julianne Hough.
“I kind of make fun of [myself], basically saying that I was the original ‘judge critic’ when I was a dancer, and now that the shoe’s on the other foot, it's a lot harder than it looks.”
On a recent day between tour stops, Hough hopped over to the Great White Way to deliver Chicago’s opening monologue in a special one-night-only appearance. His welcome cameo was in celebration of his childhood friend and DWTS pro Mark Ballas, who began his second stint as Billy Flynn that night. In a talkback after the show, the pair couldn’t resist breaking into some Chicago choreography.
Though known primarily for dancing and TV appearances, Hough says he is “absolutely, 100%” a theatre kid.
“I was even telling Mark that if somebody were to yell out the name of a musical, we could probably bust out one of the songs!” he says. “A lot of people don't realize that we actually went to a theatre arts school. We'd go to school and do musicals, and then on the weekends, we would also be competitive dancers in Latin and Ballroom.”
The Chicago appearance was full-circle for Hough, who had auditioned for the West End revival back in his London days.
“It's kind of funny– I tried out for Chicago when I was going to school there, and I was told that I was too skinny,” he says with a laugh. “I remember trying out for Guys and Dolls, and Rob Ashford was directing and choreographing it. I remember him being really kind, and I didn't get it because I was way too young. But then years later we ended up working together, and we actually might be working on a project right now.”
Out of the many musicals he saw while attending school in London, he has a particular fondness for Les Miserables.
“It was one of the only albums that we had in our house,” he says. “We had Billy Joel, U2, Les Miserables, and The Lion King. So Les Miserables was on all the time.”
One performance he saw from way up in the nosebleeds in the West End impacted him so much that he still thinks about it every time he takes the stage.
“The person I actually mold myself on, [Tim Howar]– I remember seeing him in Tonight's the Night, a Rod Stewart musical,” he recalls. He adds that stage and screen star of Ted Lasso fame, Hannah Waddingham, was in it as well.
“[Howar]’s energy, vocals and his charisma on stage– I remember watching him [and thinking], ‘Oh my God, whatever energy he is putting off, that's what I gotta give,’” Hough says. “Even to this day, when I go on stage and perform, the impact that he left stays with me.”
The elephant in the room for this theatre writer, of course, is: what would it take for Hough to come back to Broadway or take on another high-profile musical theatre role?
“I've been asked to do a bunch of different projects on Broadway over the past couple years,” Hough says. “But I also know eight shows a week for a year commitment– that's no joke. I've done it before, and I know what it takes, and it's a lot.”
Looking back with a realistic lens, he recalls the exhilarating, demanding schedule he maintained as Ren McCormack in Footloose in the West End in 2006.
“The commitment is legit. I did 600 shows of Footloose, playing the lead role, sweating through my jeans every night and sometimes doing two-a-days,” he recalls. “I'm really enjoying what I'm doing right now with the live shows. But Broadway– there'll be a time for that, I think.”
In the meantime, Hough’s tour will take him all over the U.S. before he returns to the ballroom to judge Dancing with the Stars Season 35. Then in November, he will hit the road again with a holiday tour. In all of it, he most looks forward to engaging in-person with audience members.
“Honestly, my favorite thing is the audience,” Hough says. “And I never take that for granted– the gift and the opportunity to be able to do what I love and travel, see people's cities and see them up close and personal. I love the VIP [meet-and-greet] part. I genuinely love talking with people before the show, and getting to see them, having questions asked, getting to dance with them. It’s the best. I really, really love it.”
“Derek Hough Symphony of Dance: Encore” will play the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre on August 8, 2026, at 8:00pm. Tickets range from $63.50-$87.55, with limited VIP meet-and-greet packages available.
The tour will also play Sarasota (August 6th), Orlanod (August 7th), Houston (August 10th), San Antonio (August 11th), Grand Prairie (August 12th), Tucson (August 14th), Hollywood, CA (August 15th), and Las Vegas (August 16th.)
Click here for more information and to purchase tickets.
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