BWW Interviews: Steven Booth of KINKY BOOTS at Orpheum

Get ready to kick up your heels! Wildly popular KINKY BOOTS, winner of six 2013 Tony Awards, opens October 20th at Omaha's Orpheum Theater. To get a little insider insight, I spoke with Steven Booth who plays shoe factory owner Charlie Price:

Tell us a little bit about your background:

I grew up in a town in northern Idaho called Coeur d'Alene ....beautiful place! After high school I made my way down to college at UNLV in Las Vegas. I followed a buddy down there and got into their theater program. It was not a musical theater program. I got my BA in theater performance, but we did do a couple musicals a year. Then I made my way to New York. I ended up going back to Vegas right after moving to New York because I ended up booking AVENUE Q. I spent like five years in Vegas when all was said and done. But it was good. AVENUE Q was good. I got it pretty much right out of college and it was what opened the door to getting an agent and getting my foot in New York.

I saw in an interview that you had been interested in football (or sports) and theater. What made you choose theater?

Yeah, it was sports. I stopped playing football in my freshman year of high school because everybody around me got big and I stayed small. I didn't have a growth spurt until my senior year. I was a late bloomer. But golf is one sport that I was pretty serious about. I was also serious about playing the trumpet. My junior year I got into the choir. My girlfriend talked me into jumping into the school choir with her and that's what got me interested in musical theater. I didn't really start doing theater until the end of my junior year, but I was hooked right away.

I'm from a very musical family, so I've always been around it. My mom is from a family of seven and they all sing and play musical instruments. My dad played an instrument; it's what got him into college. Then he went on to do other things like getting his business degree. I was surrounded by a lot of music, so it sort of came naturally to me. Theater just grabbed me. I loved golf and I loved sports and I loved trumpet and all those things, but there was something about theater and being a part of this group of people. It was a very accepting group. It was just so much fun. Also, I felt like I stood out a little bit singing. I thought that that was something that I could end up doing beyond high school theater. I definitely wasn't a kid who had a grand plan on going off to a musical theater college and then straight to Broadway. I didn't get super serious about it until I was in the theater program at UNLV and started being on stage with all the professionals that they would bring in to work with us. That's when I thought, okay, I can do this.

You went directly into AVENUE Q from college?

Literally, the day after I graduated from college, they had open call in Las Vegas. I had a callback and had to switch my flight. I was just going to fly off to New York. I had friends there. I was set to stay on couches for a few months until I could figure out a living situation and get a feeling for the city and give it a shot. I had that AVENUE Q call in Vegas and it ended up that they wanted me to do multiple callbacks and the audition process ended up being almost a year long. So it took a little while. Sometimes they start looking real early for some shows.

Your first Broadway show was GLORY DAYS, which didn't last beyond one night. How did that affect you?

It was a mixed bag of emotions. GLORY DAYS was written by a couple of twenty-five year olds performed by four twenty-five, twenty-six year olds, and we all did this brand new show with so much excitement...just the youthfulness of it. The music was so poppy and so different from anything else being done. We did it initially in DC at the Signature Theater. We were there for three months putting this show up in the black box there. It was such an amazing experience. To be honest, when I think back about GLORY DAYS, that's what I think about. It was so amazing. You know getting the call saying the show was going to Broadway was like this dream...it didn't really seem like it could be happening. It made it! We had two weeks of previews, so we did get to perform it in the city, be on Broadway with the show and have all our friends come see it. And you know, having the opening night and then next day literally being told we were closing... as basically a kid, it was hard to take. But, I was aware enough of the fact that we had moved real quick. You have to have a lot of money to go to Broadway. I knew that there were a lot of things that didn't have anything to do with me or the other three guys on the stage that made this thing close after a day. It was beyond our control. But the show closing in a day made it more memorable.

We did get to record the album. We came back a little less than a year later, went into the studio and recorded the cast album, and it's great. It's out there for good. Kids listen to it and love it. And I have kids showing up at the KINKY BOOTS stage door with copies of it every now and then and want me to sign it. So it's out there and I feel proud of it.

I heard you refer to the musical theater world as a "fragile business." Why is KINKY BOOTS such a success?

KINKY BOOTS is what every actor/producer/director hopes for. They didn't know when they took it to Chicago how big of a hit it would be. They knew that they had something special. Of course, they thought it was amazing. Jerry and his team and producers were so invested in it. But you just don't know how an audience will react to a show. The thing about this show is that the message is just so heartfelt and it is so right for the times right now and so universal. This message of acceptance and being who you want to be and allowing yourself to accept someone else for who they are is the heart of KINKY BOOTS. It's a message that everyone can relate to. And the show itself has so many different aspects that everyone can relate to. It has Lola and these spectacular boots and these drag queens and that whole side of things, but it's also got factory workers; these people who are trying to scrape by and work in this factory. It's these two worlds coming together and learning these things together, and spreading this message that pulls the audience in and gets everyone. There's something in it for everyone.

I think it's a show that surprises people. People see the sign and think "Oh, KINKY BOOTS. I've heard about that; that's Cindy Lauper and we have to see that." Others may know nothing about it and read "kinky" and not necessarily think about all the depth that could be in the show.

I saw KINKY BOOTS in New York and I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was a whole lot more than I'd thought.

It speaks to a lot of different people and there's a lot more to it than most people think. It's really fun to bring this show around the country to all these different cities and see all these different people be grasped by it and pulled in. For the most part, the show is doing that. People just love it.

What similarities do you have with Charlie? You said your family was very supportive of you and allowed you to be whoever you wanted to be. Charlie's father wasn't like that.

As an actor I can kinda put that on myself. My dad wasn't a repressive character. He was supportive of me. My family was supportive of me, even getting into college being wishy-washy and not quite knowing what I was doing. Charlie deals with a lot of things I've dealt with like the loss of his father. I, fortunately, have not lost my father, but I've lost people close to me. I can imagine what it would be like to be left with nothing. Having this legacy to uphold. Charlie does have a humorous side and that's definitely me. He can be a little goofy.

Overall, his search for his purpose...that's something I can relate to. Everybody's trying to figure out what they're supposed to do, especially being in this business. I feel like I'm always trying to figure that out. I never quite feel like I've become an adult because I'm never going to have that consistent desk job where I feel like I'm settled. This is an unsettling job. Every theater job ends eventually, and you gotta scrape by until you get the next one. It's scary. Charlie is scared. He doesn't know what he's supposed to do. He's turned in all different directions at the top of the show.

So, looking ahead, what would be your dream role?

Well, hmm, dream role next. I don't know because my dream role is being original. That's the thing we talked about earlier with GLORY DAYS. Doing that play is still so special because for me a dream is being creative and being the first person to do it. I don't know what that could be next, but I'm always on the lookout for new projects.

I'd love to go play Charlie in New York! It could happen. But as far as shows happening right now, I always did want to play Hedwig in HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH. I'm not going to lie, that's a role that I used to want to play when it first came out in college, because I loved the music to that show. I saw it in Scotland at the French music festival. But that show's closing, and I'm not pretty enough for Hedwig. But it's a great show.

I don't know. I've seen your headshot. You look pretty.

Haha! Thanks.

Do you have something you'd like to say to the Omaha audience that's considering seeing "KINKY BOOTS" at the Orpheum?

We do like to let everyone know that this is a family show. It's for everyone ages 10 and up. I think people might get turned off by the title of the show. Really the message is a good message.

KINKY BOOTS will run at the Orpheum Theater on Tuesday, October 20, Wednesday, October 21, and Thursday, October 22, at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, October 23, at 8:00 p.m.; Saturday, October 24, at 2:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.; and Sunday, October 25, at 1:30 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.

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