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The company of Kinky Boots on Broadway
The company of Kinky Boots on Broadway

Kinky Boots, the long-running musical with a score by Cyndi Lauper and book by Harvey Fierstein, has reached a milestone. On April 4, the musical will celebrate its 5th Anniversary at Broadway’s Al Hirschfeld Theatre. The show currently stars: Emmy Award-winner Wayne Brady as “Lola”, Season 7 American Idol winner and Billboard Chart record-breaking rocker David Cook as “Charlie Price” and Grammy Award-winner Kirstin Maldonado as “Lauren”.

An awards-darling from the very start, Kinky Boots won the 2013 Tony Award for Best Musical, as well as trophies for Cyndi Lauper’s score, Jerry Mitchell’s choreography, John Shivers’ sound design, Stephen Oremus’s orchestrations and Billy Porter for Best Actor in a Musical for playing the drag queen Lola. Kinky Boots has won every major Best Musical Award and is represented around the world with the Tony Award-winning Broadway company now entering its 6th year, a London production in its third year (where it won the 2016 Olivier Award for Best Musical) with a recently announced UK & Ireland Tour commencing next summer, a North American First National Tour in its fourth year, an upcoming production in Germany, a Korean production returning to Seoul for a third season this coming Spring, and a Japanese production returning for a second season to Tokyo and Osaka in 2019. Other previous productions include an extended run in Toronto (winner of the Dora Award for Musical) and an award-winning Australian production which concluded in October 2017. The Grammy Award-winning Original Broadway Cast Recording of Kinky Boots is available on Sony Masterworks Broadway.

Kinky Boots tells the story of a young man named Charlie Price who inherits a failing shoe factory when his father suddenly dies. In-order to keep his employees from being laid-off, he must find a way to make the business profitable again. A chance encounter with a fabulous drag queen named Lola who convinces him the time is ripe for Charlie to consider manufacturing boots for the niche drag market. Together, the two establish an unlikely friendship and the business takes-off. Along the way, both men learn a great deal about each other, their differences, and more-importantly, the things they share in-common.

Mark Robinson is the author of the two-volume encyclopedia The World of Musicals and maintains a theater and entertainment blog at markrobinsonwrites.com.

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