In 2013, the original Broadway production won six Tony Awards, including Best Musical.
Now, you can enjoy “Kinky Boots” at Olney Theatre Center running through March 26.
“I’m really hoping that people who don’t have queer friends that are part of the LGBTQ community, who don’t have exposure, who look in their hearts and admit they don’t know aabout this community and want to see examples of happy, well-adjusted, successful, healthy straight and gay people on stage together, please come,” Solomon Parker III said.
Written by Harvey Fierstein (book) and Cyndi Lauper (music/lyrics), the story follows Charlie Price (Vincent Kempski), who is trying to save his family’s shoe factory when he meets Lola (Solomon Parker III), a London drag queen in need of a boot repair. Together, they help Charlie’s macho industrial hometown co-exist with Lola’s gender-fluid queens.
“Charlie and Lola go through the same thing, realizing that what plagues them isn’t what the world is putting in front of them today, but what people expected of them in the past,” Parker said. “Charlie and Lola’s relationship is so awesome. You see two people who you think couldn’t be more different connecting because … we deal with the same issues.”
Solomon has big shoes, or kinky boots, to fill after Billy Porter, who originated the role of Lola on Broadway before becoming a TV star on “Pose.” No matter, Solomon is up to the challenge, providing a fresh approach to one of theater’s most electrifying roles.
“Lola is filled with so much energy and sass and gets to command the audience in a way that I don’t think a character since Ben Vereen as Leading Player in ‘Pippin’ has gotten to do,” Parker said. “Billy Porter is an icon … but I’m only 28, so my Lola comes with a younger, more fiery energy. No one can do the moment the way that you do the moment!”
The Olney production is directed by Jason Loewith and choreographed by Tara Jeanne Vallee, paying exciting homage to Jerry Mitchell’s original conveyer-belt staging.
“The staging is fantastic,” Parker said. “We do use the conveyer belts, but we use them differently. … The set looks amazing, dude. The lights are bananas. The lights are insane. If the beats in the songs don’t get you, the lights (will). You’ll be like, ‘These people put a lot of work and time into it.’ … We have moving stairs, everything is choreographed to a T.”
Of course, the main attraction is the dynamite songbook by the legendary Cyndi Lauper.
“Cyndi Lauper’s music style isn’t like any other musical that you can think of,” Parker said. “The genres range from old folk music to fierce funk to amazing disco to awesome ballads. … If you want to hear an insane pop vocal rock performance, you have got to hear Charlie sing ‘Not My Father’s Son,’ you’ve got to hear him sing, ‘Step One.’ The score is so dope.”
Born in Silver Spring, Maryland, Parker graduated from Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland and attended Montgomery College before working at Ford’s Theatre in D.C. and Signature Theatre in Virginia, insisting that his hometown is equal to Broadway.
“Broadway is fantastic and is obviously where we live stage artists hope to work one day, but it’s just the real estate that you’re working on,” Parker said. “The people I’ve worked with in this city are the best performers on the planet. … D.C. has the money, D.C. has the resources, D.C. has the talent, D.C. has the stages. We have everything you need here.”
Listen to our full conversation here.
