SO THAT’S HOW YOU DO CARTWHEELS IN HEELS!
THE high-energy number The Sex Is In The Heel is in full gallop at rehearsals for the incoming Broadway musical Kinky Boots.
Muscular men are doing cartwheels and back-flips, while the show’s two leads — Killian Donnelly and Matt Henry — are getting a lesson in the sexual allure of thigh-high boots.
The thing to remember, though (as Cyndi Lauper’s lyrics point out), is that the sex is in the heel and, from where I’m sitting — close to the action — almost in your face.
Overseeing it all is the show’s director and choreographer Jerry Mitchell, watching for any step that misses a beat.
How come they don’t trip or slip? ‘Rubber soles,’ revealed Mitchell’s associate choreographer Rusty Mowery.
‘Don’t kill yourselves!’ Mitchell shouted at the ensemble that included some of the best chorus boys and girls in the business. You or I would be having palpitations at this point, but the Kinky Boots company have barely broken a sweat.
Donnelly, late of The Commitments and Memphis, plays Charlie, who has to come up with a plan — fast — to save the Northampton shoe factory that has been in his family for four generations.
Enter drag queen Lola (Matt Henry), who has a head for design and fists that pack a punch, thanks to his boxer dad. The two make an unlikely professional duo.
The Tony award-winning show, created by Harvey Fierstein and Cyndi Lauper, is based on a 2005 film that featured Joel Edgerton and Chiwetel Ejiofor.
Mitchell, who started out as a Broadway hoofer in shows such as The Will Rogers Follies before moving into choreography and directing, has musicals in his blood, as well as an exceptional eye for detail.
Case in point: he knew the exact height (6ft 2in) of a pair of his key dancers (Luke Jackson and Adam Lake) who play two of the six ‘Angels’ who dress up as Lola’s aides. ‘But with hair and heels they’re 6ft 5in,’ he added. Having seen the show a few times in New York, I know that some of the Angels have a statuesque, willowy vibe when they sashay on to stage.
Mitchell jumps up and demonstrates to the chorus line how he wants them to move — a combination of tipping, dipping and flouncing.
‘Jerry’s sprinkling his magic dust,’ joked Mowery, watching Mitchell do his thing.
After a short break, Mitchell has them run through Sex Is In The Heel again, followed by another number, Everybody Say Yeah, which features a conveyor belt that people dance on and the two tallest Angels doing the splits. Ouch!
When Charlie describes the first pair of boots off the production l i ne as ‘burgundy’, Lola can take no more. ‘RED! Red is the colour of sex! Burgundy is the colour of cardigans,’ Lola declares, adding that green is the colour of pickles.
Mitchell wants Henry’s Lola to give that ‘red’ more vibrancy, and after they go through the scene several times, the director gets his wish. Henry has a cold and is feeling below par, but by the end that ‘red’ is red-hot.
Mitchell has told his actors that they’re not to think about how the musical was performed on Broadway. ‘This is the original London company, so it’s their show! In America, I had Americans pretending to be British. But here I have the real thing, so it will be very different.’
Amy Lennox, Amy Ross, Jamie Baughan and Michael Hobbs also star in Kinky Boots, which begins previews at the Adelphi Theatre from August 21.