Kinky Boots gets desired Toronto encore
Extension granted for additional six weeks after ‘insane’ audience reaction to Mirvish production
Graham Scott Fleming has hit the jackpot with his first major starring role in Kinky Boots at the Royal Alexandra Theatre.
Rave reviews and enthusiastic audiences have prompted Mirvish Productions to extend the run to Nov. 8 from its original ending of Sept. 27. The Star gave it four out of four stars. Fleming, from Elmvale, Ont., north of Barrie, says the feel-good musical about a shoe factory owner’s efforts to save the family business with the help of a drag queen has resonated with audiences.
“The audience reaction has been insane,” said Fleming before Thursday’s matinée of the Tony Award-winning mu- sical by Harvey Fierstein and Cindy Lauper.
His hometown support has also been overwhelming with residents chartering buses to attend the show.
“My parents have seen it twice and have tickets for a third show,” Fleming said.
Mirvish spokesman John Karastamatis says audiences “are clapping their hands raw,” adding the only time he’s seen a similar response in the past 25 years was with Mamma Mia! in 2000.
But that show had the advantage of well-known songs by a famous group, while Kinky Boots has unknown songs, albeit by a well-known songwriter, and a title that doesn’t resonate with North American audiences.
Kinky means odd or unusual in Great Britain, he says, not the sexual connotation it has in North America.
(It was a BBC documentary about a real-life shoemaker in Northamptonshire, England, who tried to keep his fam- ily business afloat by making “kinky boots” for drag queens that inspired the 2005 movie that the musical is based on.)
Lauper, who wrote the score for the musical, attended Sunday’s official opening and gave the cast “notes and also compliments” on their performances, Fleming said, adding she liked the way he sang his show-stopping number “The Soul of a Man.”
She also sang for him in his dressing room. “She is so kind and so smart.” Fleming has twice seen the Broadway production of Kinky Boots as well as the touring production and says audiences clap and cheer for those shows too.
But nothing prepared him for the “wall of sound” of cheers, laughter and applause that blasted onto the stage from the Royal Alexandra’s three tiers of seats, he says.
Tickets for the additional six weeks of performances go on sale Monday.