Kinky Boots musical will get Chicago tryout

Cyndi Lauper

Kinky Boots, the new Broadway-bound musical with a book by Harvey Fierstein and music by Cyndi Lauper, will get a tryout this fall at Chicago's Bank of America Theatre, Broadway in Chicago announced this morning. The show, based on the 2005 British film of the same name (which was itself inspired by a true story), will be directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell.

Fierstein, a four-time Tony Award winner, and Grammy winner Lauper, who appeared on Broadway in 2006's The Threepenny Opera, adapt the film's story of a family-run shoe factory that, with the help of a friendly drag queen, turns to manufacturing drag and fetish footwear to stay afloat. When I spoke to Fierstein for an interview in last week's issue, he was coy about rumors of a Chicago tryout for Kinky Boots. Broadway in Chicago and producers Daryl Roth and Hal Luftig say the show will play here in October; come December, the Bank of America Theatre will host The Book of Mormon's extended run.