Infectious ‘Kinky Boots’ gets crowd ready to strut

PHOTOGRAPHER: Matthew Murphy

The national touring cast of "Kinky Boots" is at Proctors through Sunday.

Ladies, gentlemen, and those who have yet to make up your mind” — hightail it to Proctors to catch “Kinky Boots” before it bolts out of town on Sunday.

Pumped full of unrelenting optimism, a fun and surprising score and a cast ready to raise you up and send you out smiling and strutting a new attitude, “Kinky Boots” is one hell of a good time. Like “Hairspray,” “Priscilla” and “La Cage Aux Folles” that came before, “Kinky Boots” educates as it celebrates, and this party is not one to be missed.

As in the 2005 movie of the same name, the story is immaterial; it’s the message that matters, and playwright Harvey Fierstein, songwriter Cyndi Lauper and director Jerry Mitchell have wisely stuck to formula. They have carefully crafted a colorful musical that, while being completely familiar, is completely contagious and joyfully ostentatious.

If you have never seen “Kinky Boots” before, you’ll swear that you have. While this musical’s mandate may ring prosaic, it is impossible not to get swept up in its spirit.

‘Kinky Boots’

WHERE: Proctors, 432 State St., Schenectady

WHEN: Through Sunday

HOW MUCH: $90-$25

MORE INFO: 346-6204, www.proctors.org

Young Charlie Price (played by Adam Halpin on Tuesday night) has inherited the family shoe factory. But after four generations of success, tastes have changed — quality is out, cheap is in — and it is about to force him, and his childhood friends, out of work.

Into his life struts Lola, (an outstanding Kyle Taylor Parker), a drag queen with a need for some quality boots and some small minds to teach.

As Lola expands Charlie’s circle of customers, she also expands his view of his world and himself — and ours too, by the author’s oh-so-clever design. Charlie finds he needs to walk a mile in another man’s boots before he can zip up his own.

We’ve heard this all before, of course. But with a “based on a true story” script, Fierstein dots the evening with his trademark insightful, heartfelt humor and Lauper peppers it up with some truly fine songs.

Add in David Rockwell’s handsome factory set and Greg Barnes’ flashy footwear (and costumes), it doesn’t really matter how pedestrian the story is because these boots are made of awesome!

Putting on some savage boots has been said to be an instant pick-me-up and this uber-talented cast shows us just how true that is. Halpin takes us on Charlie’s journey with just the right amount of earnestness that never plays false. And Lindsay Nicole Chambers brings just the right snap and self-doubt to the lovelorn Lauren with her dead on delivery of “The History of the Wrong Guys.”

But the show truly belongs to Parker’s Lola. Her soulful second act number “Hold Me in Your Heart” is a brilliant “Dreamgirls” moment. But her introduction in act one’s “Land of Lola,” with her backup Angels (wonderfully costumed Barnes) is, alone, worth the price of admission.

Act one’s on-your-feet closer, “Everybody Say Yeah,” has the ensemble bouncing off the walls — and boxes, and conveyor belts — but you can’t stop the beat of Lauper’s closing anthem to the show, “Raise You Up.”

And why would you want to? As it flooded over the footlights on opening night, it infected the audience with an unbridled joy that got them up on their feet and ready to don some mighty fierce boots for the journey home.