ROYAL ALEXANDRA THEATRE June/September 2015 RAT15JJAS_KinkyBoots_Cover.indd 1 2015-05-28 2:36 PM HugoRAT15JJAS_Movado_HugoBoss_ad.indd Boss Mirvish Kinky Boots Program FP 1 Ad.indd 1 2015-05-202015-05-28 3:412:38 PM ROYAL ALEXANDRA THEATRE June/September 2015 PUBLISHER Catharine Dunlop Contents EDITOR Laurie Payne THE KINKY BOOTS ASSOCIATE EDITOR DREAM TEAM 4 J. Randy Alldread TODAy’s PrOGRAM 9 DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING Geri Cansick THE 2015/16 SUBSCRIPTION ADVERTISING SALES SEASON 32 Betty Coulter, David Thom ROYAL ALEXANDRA DIRECTOR OF FINANCE Camillo Casciato THEATRE INFORMATION 38 PRODUCTION Marylou Morris Motown The Musical ART DIRECTOR Otto Pierre PRINTER Sunview Press Limited The Royal Alexandra Theatre Programme is published by Mirvish Media, 284 King Street West, Toronto, Ontario, M5V 1J2. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written consent is prohibited. Contents copyright © Mirvish Media. Direct all advertising enquiries to Catharine Dunlop, Visit us online at mirvish.com for everything you Ext. 508, [email protected], or visit need to know about the Royal Alexandra, Princess mirvish.com and click on Advertise With Us. of Wales, Panasonic and Ed Mirvish theatres. mirvish.com 3 RAT15JJAS_Contents.indd 3 2015-06-01 9:44 AM THE Kinky Boots DREAM TEAM Kinky Boots, the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, was created by a dream team of talented and original artists — pop icon Cyndi Lauper, who won a Tony for her infectious score, four-time Tony-winning librettist Harvey Fierstein, and director/choreographer Jerry Mitchell, who also took home a Tony for his dances. “Because we’re all different, we brought in what we know But a successful Broadway show (and, and we all worked together to make make no mistake, Kinky Boots is a huge it right — to make you laugh and cry,” hit) — is anything but a niche market; says Lauper. “Harvey is such a good it needs to speak to a wide and diverse storyteller and so is Jerry. They have a audience. Jerry Mitchell says he knew the lot of heart and I feel very blessed to be musical would speak to a lot of people, among them.” the moment he watched the film. “I got Based on an independent film inspired very emotionally caught up in the story by true events, Kinky Boots tells the story of the fathers and the sons,” he says. of Charlie, the owner of a failing English “And I thought, ‘Well, that to me is the shoe factory, teaming up with Lola, a nucleus of something really strong,’ drag artist, to serve a niche market — because it’s a universal idea for us: how making sturdy boots for cross-dressers. do we measure up in our fathers’ eyes?” 4 mirvish.com RAT15JJAS_DreamTeam.indd 4 2015-06-01 8:58 AM Kinky Boots THE KINKY BOOTS DREAM TEAM, FROM LEFT, JERRY MITCHELL, HARVEY FIERSTEIN AND CYNDI LAUPER PHOTO: GAVIN BOND PHOTO: GAVIN mirvish.com 5 RAT15JJAS_DreamTeam.indd 5 2015-06-01 8:58 AM That’s certainly the way producer Harvey Fierstein, a veteran of several Daryl Roth felt when she first saw the musicals, including the smash hit La film at the Sundance Film Festival in Cage aux Folles, gave Lauper an education 2006. Within a year, she had optioned in writing for the theatre. “Her lessons the musical rights and brought were a lot of fun for me,” he says, producer Hal Luftig on board. The “frustrating sometimes, but fun, on the two enlisted not only Mitchell, but other hand.” In particular, he showed playwright Harvey Fierstein, who Lauper how to weave music and dialogue says he was attracted to the intimate effectively, something she resisted at story at the centre; the “bromance” first. Fierstein told her: “When it’s done between Charlie and Lola, aka Simon. right, you will never notice, but the show “The real love story here is these two must move on.” A perfect example is the gentlemen who become friends,” says elaborate and catchy opening sequence, Fierstein. “And I thought it was a good The Most Beautiful Thing in the World, opportunity to do this realistically.” which they crafted with Jerry Mitchell. He was also attracted to the theme Fierstein explains: “That tells the story of self-acceptance, which translates of all the characters, in relationship to not just to the two lead characters shoes. Everyone in that opening number but all of the workers in the factory: is defined by a pair of shoes and you “It’s the human stories; that’s what know who they are.” theatre’s for.” Although the show is mostly set in Fierstein called Lauper, whom he the workaday world of a shoe factory, had known socially. She was drawn to the dream team wanted to create a the project, as well: “It’s a story about sense of joy and uplift for the audience, an outsider.” Lauper enthusiastically in the way only a Broadway musical signed on and she, Fierstein and can do. The first act finale, Everybody Mitchell began a four-and-a-half-year Say Yeah, is an explosion of energy. creative odyssey to translate Kinky Mitchell has the cast dancing on moving Boots to the stage. “I don’t keep track,” conveyor belts, which had been used to explains Mitchell. “Time to me is not deliver shoes earlier in the musical. “We the point. Getting it right is the point.” had so much fun creating that number,” Cyndi Lauper, who grew up listening exclaims Mitchell, “because it is a to Rodgers and Hammerstein cast celebration of making the first pair of albums, took to writing for characters kinky boots and everyone in the factory and dramatic situations like a duck to gets involved.” water. “Everybody asks the question And the show’s final numbers, Raise about pop songs and theatre songs,” You Up/Just Be, literally does that to the she says. “I just think that, in some audience every night. “They’re standing ways, they’re very similar; and in up, cheering, dancing and singing,” says other ways, they’re not. You need to be Jerry Mitchell. “And they don’t want economical; you have to say something to leave the theatre! That’s sort of a simply. And you have to have your magical moment. And then, when they story — a beginning, middle and end — do walk out of the theatre, you know, because if the song goes nowhere, well, they’re all abuzz. That’s the kind of joy what are you talking about?” that is rare in a musical.” 6 mirvish.com mirvish.com PB RAT15JJAS_DreamTeam.indd 6 2015-06-01 8:58 AM NEVER BEFORE HAVE A FEW INCHES MATTERED SO MUCH. NOW ON VIEW RAT15JJAS_BataShoeMuseum_ad.indd 1 2015-06-01 9:00 AM SHERATON CENTRE TORONTO HOTEL, LEFT THE WESTIN HARBOUR CASTLE, RIGHT Make a night of it FRONT ROW ACCOMMODATIONS IN DOWNTOWN TORONTO Sheraton Centre Toronto and The Westin Harbour Castle are proud host hotels of Mirvish Productions and TicketKing. For more information visit: sheratontoronto.com or westinharbourcastle.com More Luxury. More Destinations. ©2015 Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Preferred Guest, SPG, Aloft, Element, Four Points, Le Méridien, Sheraton, St. Regis, The Luxury Collection, W, Westin and their logos are the trademarks of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc., or its affiliates. RAT15JJAS_StarwoodAd.indd 1 2015-06-01 9:01 AM ROYAL ALEXANDRA THEATRE DARYL ROTH & HAL LUFTIG JAMES L. NEDERLANDER TERRY ALLEN KRAMER JAYNE BARON SHERMAN JUST FOR LAUGHS THEATRICALS/JUDITH ANN ABRAMS YASUHIRO KAWANA ALLAN S. GORDON & ADAM S. GORDON KEN DAVENPORT HUNTER ARNOLD LUCY & PHIL SUAREZ BRYAN BANTRY JANE BERGÈRE/INDEPENDENT PRESENTERS NETWORK JIM KIERSTEAD/BB GROUP CHRISTINA PAPAGJIKA/GREGORY RAE BRIAN SMITH/TOM & CONNIE WALSH WARREN TREPP AND JUJAMCYN THEATERS by arrangement with DAVID MIRVISH present Book by Music & Lyrics by HARVEY FIERSTEIN CYNDI LAUPER Based on the Miramax motion picture Kinky Boots Written by Geoff Deane and Tim Firth Starring ALAN MINGO JR. GRAHAM SCOTT FLEMING AJ BRIDEL DANIEL WILLISTON VANESSA SEARS JAMES KALL DAN DOMENECH DAVID HOULE DAVID LOPEZ STEWART ADAM MCKENSY GEOFF STEVENS JESSE WEAFER PATRICK COOK KRISTEN PEACE NICOLA DAWN BROOK ISAIAH SLATER KADEN STEPHEN ARDEN COUTURIER ERIC LECLAIR THOMAS ALDERSON ANDRE ANTHONY LISA HORNER JULIA MCLELLAN ERICA PECK ANDREW SCANLON DAVID SILVESTRI JIVARO SMITH JUSTIN STADNYK MADELEINE SUDDABY CLEOPATRA WILLIAMS RYAN WILSON SANDY WINSBY Scenic Design Costume Design Lighting Design Sound Design DAVID ROCKWELL GREGG BARNES KENNETH POSNER JOHN SHIVERS Hair Design Makeup Design Associate Choreographer Associate Director JOSH MARQUETTE RANDY HOUSTON MERCER RUSTY MOWERY D.B. BONDS Casting U.S. Casting Executive Producer General Manager STEPHANIE GORIN CASTING, CSA TELSEY+COMPANY BRIAN SEWELL DAVID MUCCI JUSTIN HUFF, CSA Production Manager Production Stage Manager U.S. Technical Supervisor Worldwide Management SCOT WHITHAM THE. JOHN GRAY THEATERSMITH ASSOCIATES FORESIGHT THEATRICAL Music Supervision, Arrangements & Orchestrations by STEPHEN OREMUS Directed and Choreographed by JERRY MITCHELL RAT15JJAS_KinkyBoots_Program.indd 9 2015-06-01 9:22 AM the cast (in order of appearance) Mr. Price...........................................................SANDY WINSBY Young Charlie ......................................ARDEN COUTURIER, ERIC LECLAIR Young Lola .........................................ISAIAH SLATER, KADEN STEPHEN Simon Sr. ..........................................................JIVARO SMITH Nicola............................................................ VANESSA SEARS Charlie Price ..............................................GRAHAM SCOTT FLEMING George . JAMES KALL Don ...........................................................DANIEL WILLISTON Lauren .................................................................AJ