Cyndi Lauper musical ‘Kinky Boots’ opens in Sarasota

It’s a show created, as one cast member said, “by musical theater royalty.” It’s about drag queens who save a shoe company, and it includes a love story and a boxing match.

It wouldn’t seem as though “Kinky Boots” could miss. And it hasn’t.

The Broadway run is still going strong after more than four years, and the national Equity tour is drawing crowds around the country after almost as long.

The tour comes to the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall in Sarasota for seven performances beginning Tuesday.

Among the “royalty” who created the show is pop star Cyndi Lauper, who won a Tony Award for her score, the first she had ever written. The book was written Harvey Fierstein, a Broadway stalwart who’s probably best known for “La Cage Aux Folles.” It’s directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell, who has decades of Broadway hits behind him, including “La Cage,” “Hairspray” and “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.”

The story (based on a British non-musical film, which was based on a true story) has to do with a young man who inherits his family’s struggling shoe manufacturing company. He’s very strait-laced, but after he meets a night club entertainer named Lola, he gets the idea to manufacture shoes for drag queens.

Details: April 25-30, Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, 777 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. 8 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday. $76-$116. 941-953-3368, vanwezel.org.

This story was originally published April 19, 2017 at 2:25 PM with the headline "Cyndi Lauper musical ‘Kinky Boots’ opens in Sarasota."