KINKY BOOTS: Ghee & Piscitelli Team Up To Bring LOLA To Life

If the theme of Kinky Boots the Musical - opening tonight at Nashville's Tennessee Performing Arts Center - is "just be who you wanna be," then you can rest assured that both J. Harrison Ghee and Mikey Piscitelli are living every moment of their lives with that as their motto.

Tonight, Ghee will step onto the stage of Andrew Jackson Hall to take over the role of the show's "leading lady," Lola, a drag queen turned shoe designer, as the national tour's Kyle Taylor Parker goes back to Broadway to fill in for Tony Award winner Billy Porter in the role. He's been busily learning the lines, committing the blocking to memory and becoming Lola while playing one of the show's Angels in the company's Detroit and Des Moines stands.

Ensuring that all goes off without a hitch for Ghee's debut as Lola is the show's "star dresser" Piscitelli, whose job it is to make certain that all of Lola's costume changes and scene transitions are as smooth as silk, expertly guiding Ghee through the jungle of a darkened backstage in the new-to-them wings of Jackson Hall.

While the pair were in Detroit with the rest of the company, they took time from their busy/crazy schedules to talk by phone about their roles in the joyous, tuneful Kinky Boots. Winner of six Tony Awards, with music by Cyndi Lauper, book by Harvey Fierstein, and choreographed and directed by Jerry Mitchell (talk about a Broadway pedigree!), Kinky Boots the Musical is based on Kinky Boots the film.

When you are first reading this story on the screen of your work computer in your cubicle, from a tablet in the warmth of your dorm room, or on the tiny screen of a smartphone while chowing down on a burger...chances are, Mikey Piscitelli is already hard at work in the deep recesses of TPAC, getting things ready for tonight's performance.

Born in California, Piscitelli grew up in Houston, doing a "lot of community theater as a teenager" before making his way to New York to pursue his own Broadway dreams and being exactly who he wants to be: "I had originally done some work for Greg Barnes [a Tony nominee for Kinky Boots and Tony winner for The Drowsy Chaperone and the 2011 revival of Follies], so I was hired to do some stoning and bedazzling for Kinky Boots. I had friends in the show and so I saw it seven times in New York City. The minute I heard about the tour, I knew I had to be part of the company!"

"Finagling" his way into the mix, Piscitelli made it known that he wanted to go on tour and was hired to be the show's star dresser, taking care of Lola's costumes and helping the actor playing Lola to maneuver his way amid the craziness of the backstage world that audiences never get to see, but which provides its own unique sense of dramatic flair.

"My day begins," he explains, "with three to four hours of work to take care of Lola - there's a lot of steaming, ironing and repairing to be done every day, and probably about two hours of beading."

Barnes' costumes are glittery and glamourous, to be sure, but to keep them that way so that they truly pop onstage requires almost constant vigilance, which calls for someone of Mikey Piscitelli's ilk backstage. With much attention to detail, he busy doing pre-sets of costumes offstage ("putting them where they need to go") so that Ghee's quick changes are indeed quick enough that they never hamper the show's onstage flow.

"My favorite costume is for the finale because it's covered in stones...hundreds of different kinds of beads and stones," he says. "So when Lola come out the lights hit him, there is always a big round of applause. "

His next-favorite costume? Actually, it's a smock that Lola wears at the end of Act One, "a paisley smock with an orange scarf...it's beautiful and it tells a story to the audience subliminally. In theater, you have to do things, using color and pattern to attract the audience's eyes to tell the story sometimes."

Playing in different theaters every few weeks or even every few days make it vital that dressers and their actors know their way around backstage, both for safety purposes and the continuity of the show's onstage action. "I also spend time making sure that his dressing room is nice and ready for him when he arrives so that he's ready to do his job: be Lola onstage."

Since theaters are not designed alike, it's Piscitelli's job to work out a routine for each stand that will become second nature, both for him and for his actor. "You have to think on your feet because you don't have a week to think about it," he confides.

"While he's onstage - once he leaves his dressing room - it's like we jump on a train and we don't stop until the finale."

And when J. Harrison Ghee is offstage, he is never alone: Mikey Piscitelli is at his side, helping him into the 12 different looks that designate Lola's stature as one of the show's stars. "I'm the Glam Squad," Piscitelli says. "It's my job to get him into costume and to provide support. I have a wonderful job and it's important to form a tremendous relationship with the actor playing Lola so that we create a nice bond."

What's Mikey's favorite part of the show? "I have so many favorite parts - I was a huge fan of the show before I got the job - but I would have to say my favorite part of the show is the finale. You cannot see the finale and not be uplifted by it! No matter what's happened to you during the day, you just can't see that finale and not leave the theater feeling good."

J.Harrison Ghee agrees with Piscitelli whole-heartedly, adding "Kinky Boots is a show that has a universal message and anyone can connect to the show's theme. Be who you want to be!"

"If you commit to something and just be who you are and be genuine...people will connect to that. That's what this show is all about. It's filled with joy!" he enthuses. "Your life is limitless."

And while he's probably busy right now, running over his lines and singing the show's score in his head, one thing is clear: Ghee's debut as Lola is the culmination of his life's ambitions and the realization of his long-held theatrical dreams. In fact, he personifies the show's theme - he's living proof that his own life is indeed limitless.

A native of Fayetteville, North Carolina, J. Harrison says, "performing is something I've always done. I like to say I came out of my mother singing. Performing is just something that is in my blood."

After regional roles (in the ensemble of The Color Purple), international roles (at Tokyo's Disney Resort), and sea-going roles (aboard Norwegian Cruise Lines), Ghee is "excited to be telling this amazing story" and expresses gratitude for the support from family, friends "and strangers" that have helped him arrive at this crowning moment in his stage career. "Dreams do come true," he says.

The role of Lola offered some unique challenges for the actor: "This is the first time I've understudied such a role, but the entire company has been amazingly loving and supportive all the way, so that when I got the call to tell me I would be taking over the role of Lola I knew I was ready for the challenge."

As a swing, Ghee is responsible for learning the parts of several different characters, a challenge that he apparently loves: "For me, my brain just works that way. I've always learned other people's parts even when I didn't have to! I now joke to people that at least now they're paying me to do it."

Getting cast in Kinky Boots may have been serendipitous for Ghee who originally was going in for an audition for Motown the Musical when he decided to drop off a headshot and resume at the Kinky Boots casting office.

Call it luck, call it fate, call it kismet - call it whatever you want - but that happenstance resulted in an email, asking J. Harrison Ghee to record a song and send it along to casting agents. "That got the ball rolling and I was cast in Kinky Boots," he says.

Playing Lola presents other unique challenges, he maintains. "She is such a large character that she can be overdone. The key is to play the role honestly, being outspoken and still being relatable."

The role comes easy for him, J. Harrison believes, thanks to his own personal experience: "I've been doing drag for four and a half years, so that makes Lola easier for me to become."

Which begs the question: What's your favorite costume? "My costume for 'Sex Is In the Heel,' probably. The blue really pops against my ebony skin. It's short and sexy!"

"I'm so excited to be playing this role in this show," he confides. "And it's definitely a dream come true. But I have moments when I look in the mirror and just can't believe that I'm starring in a big Broadway musical, a Tony Award-winning show!"

Tickets to Kinky Boots are available online at www.TPAC.org, by phone at (615) 782-4040, and at the TPAC Box Office, 505 Deaderick Street in downtown Nashville. For group tickets, call (615) 682-4060.

J. Harrison Ghee takes over the role of Lola just in time for its Music City debut next week. Steven Booth (Avenue Q, Glory Days, Dogfight) stars as shoe factory owner Charlie Price. Ghee and Booth are joined by Lindsay Nicole Chambers (Hairspray, Legally Blonde, Lysistrata Jones) as Lauren, Joe Coots (TV's Inside Amy Schumer, Full Monty national tour) as Don, Craig Waletzko (Guys & Dolls, Young Frankenstein) as George, and Grace Stockdale in her touring debut as Nicola.

Rounding out the ensemble are Damien Brett, Stephen Carrasco, Lauren Nicole Chapman, Amelia Cormack, Troi Gaines, Blair Goldberg, Darius Harper, Andrew Theo Johnson, Crystal Kellogg, Jeffrey Kishinevskiy, Jeff Kuhr, Ross Lekites, Patty Lohr, Mike Longo, Tommy Martinez, Kenny Morris, Nick McGough, Bonnie Milligan, Anthony Picarello, Horace V. Rogers, Ricky Schroeder, Anne Tolpegin, Juan Torres-Falcon, Hernando Umana and Sam Zeller.

The design team for Kinky Boots includes Tony Award nominee David Rockwell (Scenic Design), Tony Award winner Gregg Barnes(Costume Design), Tony Award winner Kenneth Posner (Lighting Design), Tony Award winner John Shivers (Sound Design), Josh Marquette(Hair Design), Randy Houston Mercer (Make-up Design), Telsey + Company, Justin Huff, CSA (Casting), Adam Souza (Musical Direction), with Musical Supervision and Arrangements and Orchestrations by Tony and Grammy Award winner Stephen Oremus.

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