Casting Caveats

the playwright's casting requests....

Cyndi Lauper and Harvey Fierstein wrote us a letter:

Cyndi and Harvey used “should” when asking for specific demographics.

This is the first high school production of Kinky Boots. There was a member of the licensing company, Musical Theater International, in the audience for this one.

That first photo is of the ‘Angels’, the group that Harvey and Cyndi say ‘should be male’. The next photo has the minor antagonist, and one of the protagonists facing each other. The third is a shot of the ‘female’ factory worker chorus. As far as I can tell, this high school program followed 2 of the 3 ‘should’s’ in that letter. It looks awesome, I would have loved to see this one.

Did Cyndi and Harvey include that letter after MTI saw a few more productions? A quick scan of the high school productions tells me that 1 out of 3 shoulds is the most typical; I found zero 3 out of 3’s.

1. The Angels are rarely all male. The one high school production I saw had one “male” Angel, and the rest were “female” - some i…