A young man living in London suddenly inherits a struggling British shoe factory when his father dies. Faced with a company near bankruptcy and row upon row of shoes that no one wants to buy, he resolves to save his father’s legacy although he doesn’t know how. It’s Kinky Boots, the Cyndi Lauper Broadway show with a book by Tony-winner Harvey Fierstein that won six Tony Awards® including Best Musical and is still playing on Broadway.
“Charlie Price starts out as a bit of a lost soul. He doesn’t quite know what his path is in life,” says Steven Booth (Broadway: Glory Days), who plays the character in Kinky Boots. “He’s torn between staying back and upholding the factory legacy or following his fiancée to London, to the big city, and making his own path there.” There he meets Lola, a drag queen who really needs some sturdy stilettos. “The two of them end up working together to save his factory, and Lola really ends up being the only person who can show Charlie who he is and who he’s meant to be. They find themselves through each other.”
Darius Harper plays Lola, in heels, and calls his character “a bit of an onion. There’s many layers to her. You have to play Lola and you have to play Simon, who is the man underneath the woman. Lola is a very outgoing person on the outside but a very vulnerable and sort of guarded person underneath.”
Set to catchy Cyndi Lauper tunes, Kinky Boots stresses the theme of acceptance, both Booth and Harper say. “It’s about accepting yourself. It’s about accepting others for who they are,” Booth says.
As for the heels, Harper says, “You know, at first it was a little bit of a challenge. Some are quite tall. It wasn’t so much getting used to being in the shoe; it was the amount of time you spend in the shoe. The [Tony-winning] choreography of Jerry Mitchell is quite demanding.”
7:30 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays. Through February 22. Hobby Center, 800 Bagby. For information, call 713‑558‑8887 or visit tuts.com. $47.50 to $145.
Tue., Feb. 10, 8 p.m.; Wednesdays, Thursdays, 7:30 p.m.; Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2 & 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 & 7:30 p.m.; Tue., Feb. 17, 7:30 p.m. Starts: Feb. 10. Continues through Feb. 22, 2015
This article appears in Feb 5-11, 2015.
