‘Kinky Boots’ hitting the road
Boots on the ground. Make that “Boots” on the stage.
“Kinky Boots,” that is.
The Tony-winning musical, which began a 10-day run Thursday night at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts, launches its yearlong national tour from Las Vegas.
Director Jerry Mitchell, cast and crew members checked into The Smith Center’s Reynolds Hall on Aug. 25, following almost a month of New York rehearsals; composer Cyndi Lauper arrived in Las Vegas on Monday.
“For me, it’ll be interesting,” Lauper said of the tour launch, noting that Mitchell has directed national tours several times, while “this is my first time around the pony-wagon.”
After working for more than a week in Las Vegas, “I give high kudos to everyone here at The Smith Center,” Mitchell said, praising local crew members. “I work at a lot of theaters, and this facility has been sensational.”
Inspired by a fact-based 2005 movie, “Kinky Boots” focuses on Charlie (played by UNLV theater alumnus Steven Booth), the heir to a failing British shoe factory, who teams up with brassy drag queen Lola (Kyle Taylor Parker) to create the title footwear.
A day before the curtain rose on Thursday’s “Kinky Boots” preview, Mitchell and colleagues — on- and offstage — were busy fine-tuning elements from spotlight cues to dance moves.
“Make the follow spots a little smaller, please,” Mitchell observed, speaking by wireless microphone from a perch in the Reynolds Hall orchestra section after viewing the introduction to “Raise You Up,” the show’s rousing second-act finale. “And then go crazy.”
After the number ran, Mitchell requested a rerun, bounding onto the stage as cast members assembled around him.
The performers were decked out in typical rehearsal togs — T-shirts or tank tops, shorts or yoga pants.
Except, of course, for their spangled, stiletto-heeled, thigh-high boots in an array of eye-catching patterns, from red leather to gold lame to full-on Union Jack.
Mitchell addressed cast members, demonstrating energetic kicks and turns.
“Let’s put it together and try it with the music,” Mitchell concluded, retreating to the seats. “Here we go — five, six, seven, eight!”
The music kicked in, prompting the performers to kick up their boot-clad heels. Just not high enough for Mitchell.
“Stop, stop, stop,” he announced by microphone, returning to the stage to address the show’s shoe-factory workers modeling those kinky boots. “You have to make it much more of a big deal,” the director instructed. “You made them — and you’re here! You paid 29 pounds on easyJet to get here!”
When Mitchell was satisfied, the rehearsal moved on.
Colorful light panels and flashy showroom (shoe-room?) decor disappeared, replaced first by the shoe factory’s brick-and-glass facade — and then by a boxing ring, where drag queen Lola and loudmouth factory worker Don (Joe Coots) engaged in some fisticuffs.
After one run-through, Coots received some coaching on his lines — from none other than Lauper, who approached the stage and faced the performer, singing along with him to emphasize the cadence of the lyrics.
“Cocky — on every beat,” Lauper advised, emphatically tapping out propulsive accompaniment with the heel of her shoe. “You feel the rhythm?”
Later, Lauper commented on the challenge cast members face in performing her score.
“They’ve been studying musical theater all their life,” she said, “and now, they’re singing pop.”
Writing a Broadway show also represented a challenge for the singer-songwriter, who first hit the charts in 1983 with her “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” from “She’s So Unusual,” her aptly titled debut album.
“The hardest thing for me,” Lauper said, was realizing that cast members were “not you — you’ve got to write for them.”
In Mitchell’s view, “Kinky Boots’ tour cast is quite successful in delivering Lauper’s first-ever Broadway score, for which she won a Tony Award. (Mitchell, whose credits include Planet Hollywood Resort’s “Peepshow,” collected a Tony for his “Kinky Boots”choreography.)
Now, the director reflected a few hours before their first preview, “what they need more than anything is an audience.”
Contact reporter Carol Cling at ccling@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.
