Kinky Boots is a Broadway musical that
debuted at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre in 2013. Its music and lyrics were written
by Cyndi Lauper. The production earned a season-high 13 Tony award nominations
and 6 Tony wins, including Best Musical and Best Score. In 2016, it won three
Laurence Olivier Awards, including Best New Musical. The musical uses a
twelve-piece orchestra consisting of keyboards, percussion, bass, guitars,
reeds, violin, viola, cello, trumpet, and trombone.
Based on the 2005 British film Kinky
Boots and inspired by true events documented in a 1999 episode of the
BBC2 documentary television series Trouble
at the Top. It followed the true story of Steve Pateman, who was
struggling to save his family-run shoe factory from closure and decided to
produce fetish footwear for men, under the brand name "Divine Footwear”.
The musical adaptation Kinky Boots tells the story of Charlie Price. Having
inherited a shoe factory from his father, Charlie forms an unlikely partnership
with cabaret performer and drag queen Lola to produce a line of high-heeled
boots and save the business. In the process, Charlie and Lola discover that
they are not so different after all.
Act I
Charlie Price grows up as the fourth-generation "son" in his
family business, Price & Son, a shoe factory in Northampton. Another young
boy, growing up in London, is as fascinated by shoes as Charlie is bored by
them, but in this case it is a pair of red women's heels that have attracted
his attention, aggravating his strict father. Years pass. Charlie's father is
aging and hopes that Charlie will take over the factory, but Charlie is eager
to move to London with his status-conscious fiancée, Nicola, and pursue a
career in real estate ("The Most Beautiful Thing").
Charlie has barely made it into his new flat in London when his father dies
suddenly. Charlie hurries home for the funeral, where he finds the factory near
bankruptcy. The factory makes good quality men's shoes, but they are not
stylish and not cheap, and the market for them is drying up. Charlie is determined
to save the factory and his father's legacy, though he has no desire to run
Price & Sons himself. The workers, many of whom have known Charlie his
entire life, do not understand why Charlie had moved away in the first place,
and many are hostile and skeptical of the new management.
Returning to London, Charlie meets his friend and fellow shoe salesman
Harry, in a pub, to ask for help with the factory. Harry can only offer a
temporary solution and advises Charlie not to fight the inevitable ("Take
What You Got"). Leaving the pub, Charlie witnesses a woman being accosted
by two drunks. He intervenes and is knocked unconscious. He comes to in a seedy
nightclub, where the woman he attempted to rescue is revealed to have been the
club's drag queen headliner, Lola, who performs with her backup troupe of drag
dancers, the "angels" ("Land of Lola"). Recuperating from
his ordeal in Lola's dressing room, an uncomfortable Charlie notices that the
performers' high-heeled boots are not designed to hold a man's weight, but Lola
explains that the expensive and unreliable footwear is an essential part of any
drag act.
Charlie returns to the factory and begins reluctantly laying off his
workers. Lauren, one of the women on the assembly line, explodes at Charlie
when given her notice, and stubbornly tells him that other struggling shoe
factories have survived by entering an "underserved niche market".
This gives Charlie an idea ("Land of Lola" reprise), and he invites
Lola to come to the factory to help him design a women's boot that can be
comfortable for a man ("Charlie's Soliloquy"/"Step One").
Lola and the angels arrive at the factory, and she is immediately
unsatisfied with Charlie's first design of the boot. Quickly getting the women
of the factory on her side, she draws a quick design of a boot, explaining the
most important factor is by far the sex appeal ("The Sex is in the
Heel"). George, the factory manager, realizes a way to make her design
practical, and an impressed Charlie begs Lola to stay until a prestigious
footwear show in Milan in three weeks' time, to design a new line of
"kinky boots" that could save the factory. Lola is reluctant, since
she is already receiving crass comments from some of the factory workers, but
is flattered by Charlie's praise, and finally agrees.
Charlie announces that the factory will be moving ahead with production on
the boots. He thanks Lauren for giving him the idea, and offers her a
promotion. She accepts, and is horrified but thrilled to realize she is falling
for him ("The History of Wrong Guys").
The next day, Lola shows up in men's clothes and is mocked by the foreman,
Don, and his friends. An upset Lola takes refuge in the bathroom, and Charlie
attempts to comfort her. Lola explains that her father trained her as a boxer,
but disowned her when she showed up for a match in drag. The two discover their
similarly complex feelings toward their fathers, and Lola introduces herself by
her birth name: Simon ("Not My Father's Son").
Nicola arrives from the city of London, and presents Charlie with a plan
for the factory that her boss has drawn up: closing it and converting it into
condominiums. Charlie refuses, but is shocked to discover that his father had
agreed to this plan before he died, presumably because Charlie was not there to
run it. He refuses to sell, and soon the workers are celebrating as the first
pair of "kinky boots" is finished ("Everybody Say Yeah").
Act II
Many of the factory workers are not enthusiastic about the radical change
in their product line. Some of them, especially the intimidating Don, make Lola
feel very unwelcome. Lola taunts him back, enlisting the help of the female
factory workers to prove that Lola is closer to a woman's ideal man than Don
("What a Woman Wants"). Lola presents Don with a unique wager to see
who is the better "man": Lola will do any one thing that Don
specifies if Don will do one thing that Lola specifies. Don's challenge is for
Lola to fight him in a boxing match at the pub. Charlie, remembering Lola's
background, is horrified. Lola easily scores against Don in the ring but
ultimately lets Don win the match ("In This Corner"). Afterwards, in
private, Don asks why she let him win, and Lola replies that she could not be
so cruel as to humiliate Don in front of his mates. She gives him her part of
the challenge: "accept someone for who they are."
Charlie is pouring his own money into the factory to ensure it will be
ready in time for Milan, and he is getting frantic that the product is not
right, angrily forcing his staff to redo what he considers to be shoddy work.
Nicola arrives, fed up with Charlie's obsession over the factory, and breaks up
with him. Lola has been making some decisions about production and preparations
without consulting Charlie. When he discovers that she has decided to have her
angels wear the boots on the runway rather than hiring professional models, an
overwhelmed Charlie lashes out at her, humiliating her in front of the other
workers. Lola storms out, and the factory workers go home. Alone, Charlie
struggles with the weight of his father's legacy and what it means to be his
own man ("Soul of a Man").
Lauren finds Charlie and tells him to come back to the factory. It is
revealed that Don has persuaded all the workers to return to work and to
sacrifice a week's pay to ensure the boots can be finished in time for Milan.
Charlie is astonished and grateful, and asks if Don has paid up on his wager by
accepting Lola. Lauren explains that the person that Don has accepted is
Charlie himself.
As he heads to the airport for Milan, Charlie leaves a heartfelt apology on
Lola's voicemail. Meanwhile, Lola performs her act at a nursing home in her
home town. After she leaves the stage, she speaks to her now wheelchair-bound
father, who is dying in the home, and reaches a sense of closure ("Hold Me
in Your Heart").
Charlie and Lauren arrive in Milan, but without models Charlie is forced to
walk the runway himself. Lauren is thrilled by his dedication ("The
History of Wrong Guys (Reprise)") but the show threatens to be a disaster.
Just as all seems lost, Lola and her angels arrive to save the day. Lauren and
Charlie share their first kiss, and the whole company celebrates the success of
the "Kinky Boots" ("Raise You Up/Just Be").
Theatre Info
The Al Hirschfeld Theatre was
designed for vaudeville promoter Martin Beck. In fact, the theatre opened as
the Martin Beck Theatre with a
production of Madame Pompadour in 1924. It was the only theatre in New
York that was owned outright without a mortgage. It was designed to be the most
opulent theatre of its time, and has dressing rooms for 200 actors. The theatre
has a seating capacity of 1,424 for musicals. We previously saw Christina
Applegate as the title role in Sweet Charity in this same theatre in
2005, and Kiss Me Kate here in 1999. In 2003, it was renamed the Al Hirschfeld
Theatre in honor of the caricaturist famous for his drawings of Broadway
celebrities. This is one of five theatres owned and operated by Jujamcyn
Theatres, who purchased it in 1965 from the Beck family. In order to reflect
how Hirschfeld’s career spanned the Martin Beck’s years of operation, a gallery
was installed in the mezzanine which features 22 reproductions of the artist’s
drawings portraying plays and actors who appeared at the theater.
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