The Tony Award-winning Kinky Boots kicks up its heels at Detroit's Fisher Theatre.

Suzanne Chessler

I Contributing Writer

D

aryl Roth saw the 2005 British-
American film Kinky Boots at the
Sundance Film Festival and knew
she wanted it adapted into a Broadway
musical. Hal Luftig saw the comedy-drama
on a trip to England and had the same reac-
tion.
The storyline, based on actual events,
resonated with both of them as producers
and individuals, fitting in with their behind-
the-scenes theater experiences independent
of each another.
The Roth-Luftig stage-production col-
laboration for Kinky Boots initiated during
a lunchtime conversation and resulted in a
hit that brought six Tony Awards in 2013.
Detroit audiences will get to see the tour-
ing version Jan. 15-25 at the Fisher Theatre
in Detroit.
"I love the story that this show is telling
and the fact that it gives people such joy
when they see it" Roth says during a con-
versation from her New York office. "It's a
production accessible to all people"
Kinky Boots spotlights two main char-
acters: Charlie Price (Steven Booth), a man
who inherits his father's shoe factory on
the verge of its bankruptcy, and Lola (Kyle
Taylor Parker), a drag performer who sug-
gests a reinvention of the factory to provide
shoes for cross-dressers.
The script was written by Harvey
Fierstein (Torch Song Trilogy, La Cage
aux Polies), and the songs were developed
by rock musician Cyndi Lauper ("True
Colors").
"For me, the play delivers a multilevel
message Roth says. "It talks about accept-
ing people for who they are as well as
accepting oneself. It's also about finding
your passion in life and going for it. There's
the additional element of family and friend-
ship"
Roth, who also has produced the LGBT-
themed plays The Normal Heart and
The Temperamentals, among many other
successes, is interested in gender themes

because her son is gay.
Away from theater, she has Jewish
"My son has brought such joy and love
interests, including her family's establish-
into my life says Roth, also the mother of
ment of the Roth Center for Jewish Life at
a daughter, is the grandmother of four and
Dartmouth College in New Hampshire,
wife of real estate developer Steven Roth.
service on the board of the Albert Einstein
"When my son came out, it also was my
College of Medicine in New York and
life that changed in a way that I needed to
involvement with her synagogue.
understand, and I needed to learn more
"I'm drawn to theatrical works about peo-
about the gay community. I believe in
ple and their relationships" Roth says. "I'm
unconditional love and supporting your
especially interested in the outsider's story,
children in every way possible.
someone who has perhaps been marginal-
"I want people to open
ized and then thrives:'
Although Roth has
their minds, learn and
be engaged. People have
hired theater graduates
to perhaps change their
from the University of
Michigan, she has not
minds about their pre-
conceived ideas. Kinky
been to the state and so
Boots has that in the song
is contemplating a visit
`Raise You Up/Just Be' as it
during the run of Kinky
expresses that we change
Boots.
the world when we change
Luftig will be in town
our minds:'
for sure.
Roth, who became a
"Kinky Boots is an
producer in her 40s, credits
uplifting story about being
passion, hard work and
oneself;" Luftig says in a
tenacity for her advance-
phone conversation from
ment that also has spot-
New York "It's about
lighted plays about strong
accepting yourself and
finding
friendship in the
women, including Wit,
Producers Hal Luftig and Daryl
Proof and Anna in the
most
unlikely
places.
Roth
Tropics.
"The message especially
Although an art-
comes through in the song
history major who attended Syracuse
`I'm Not My Father's Son: with the two main
University before graduating from New York characters ultimately expressing that they
University, she decided the performing arts
have more in common than they thought.
were for her.
"I also like the lyrics at the end of the
"I always wanted to figure out how people show when the whole cast sings about being
made all this happen, and that became the
who you want to be and living with dignity."
defmition of producer" she says. "I didn't
Looking for shows he believes will touch
know that when I started:'
audiences by reaching head or heart, Luftig
While Kinky Boots has no element that is has worked on Legally Blonde and the first
specifically Jewish, Roth suggests that it has
revival of Evita among other hits. He was
tenets of Judaism in its attention to caring
introduced to theater as his parents bought
about other people.
family tickets for a variety of productions.
Current Roth projects that present obvi-
Although starting out in journalism,
ous Jewish content include Wiesenthal,
holding a degree from SUNY Oneonta
about Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal; It
and working as an assistant copy editor
Should Have Been You, about an inter-reli- at Newsday, Luftig went on to study the-
gious romance; and Stars of David, about
ater management at Columbia University
Jewish notables.
and found production internships with

Above: A scene from the
National Tour of Kinky Boots

Mame and Dreamgirls.
"When I got out of school, I was hired by
a company to help run their theaters, and
I've been producing shows since 1984, says
Luftig, now working on the first-ever revival
of Children of a Lesser God and The Last
Goodbye, the text of Romeo and Juliet
enhanced with the sounds of musician Jeff
Buckley.
Luftig, who opened the tour of Movin'
Out in Detroit, has related the theme of
Kinky Boots to his Jewish identity.
"After I was bar mitzvahed, I realized that
I was gay but didn't come out until I was 19
or 20," he recalls. "I felt that Judaism and the
temple I belonged to spoke to me on moral
issues and values but not in terms of the
struggle I had been going through.
"In 1992, I was living in [New York
City] as an out man but felt religion was
leaving my life. A friend told me about
Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, for the
gay community, and I went.
"It was Yom Kippur, a holiday I always
observe, and I looked around with tears in
my eyes. There were people like me, Jews
who embrace their religion, and the rabbi
explained how Judaism talks to us.
At the end of the service, I met my
husband, and we've been together nearly
23 years. We're not alone, and that idea
becomes an important message for anyone
watching Kinky Boots7

❑

Kinky Boots runs Jan. 15-25 at

the Fisher Theatre in Detroit.
Performance times are at 8 p.m.
Tuesdays-Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m.
Saturdays, and 2 and 7:30 p.m.
Sundays. There also will be a 2 p.m.
Thursday, Jan. 15, matinee and a
special open-captioned performance
at 8 p.m. Monday, Jan.19. Tickets
start at $35. (313) 872-1000;
broadwayindetroit.com .

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