With ‘Kinky Boots,’ Cyndi Lauper is alive and kicking

It’d be easy to make the mistake of thinking that Cyndi Lauper has gone hit-less since her “Time After Time”/“True Colors” heyday in the ’80s.

But it would indeed be a mistake.

In fact – thanks to the 15 songs she wrote for the musical “Kinky Boots” a few years ago – the pop-rock legend is riding a wave of success that has included a Tony Award in 2013 for Best Original Score (she’s the first woman ever to do so on her own) and a Grammy Award in 2014 for Best Musical Theater Album.

Next Tuesday, “Kinky Boots” begins its second run of 2015 at Belk Theater in Charlotte.

Once again, the cast is led by Fayetteville native J. Harrison Ghee as cross-dressing cabaret performer Lola, who bonds with new shoe-factory owner Charlie Price (Adam Kaplan) in part because they both have complex feelings toward their fathers. The show’s title gets its name from the line of high-heeled boots they team up to produce for drag queens in order to try to save the failing plant.

We spoke with Lauper last month about the musical, the difference between writing songs for the radio and writing songs for the stage, and who she thinks are the two greatest pop songwriters of all time.

Q. Where did you find inspiration when it came to thinking about how to handle the complicated themes in the songs you were writing?

A. Well, I’m a mom (to 18-year-old son Declyn Wallace Lauper Thornton) and I’ve been watching my son grow up and watch other boys a lot. I watch them as they try and emulate their dads, and there’s that very heartbreaking moment for the dads when they try and push away from their fathers and not be like their dads at all. And so it was kind of exciting to try and take those little bits of real life and stick ’em in a song. (See “Not My Father’s Son” in Act I.)

Q. I’m guessing that’s how you wrote pop songs back in the ’80s, too: by taking bits of real life and sticking them in a song.

A. Yeah, I always listen to what’s going on around me – if I can remember, and I’m not so caught up in myself. It’s better to keep your mind open and listen to the language of the people around you. ... (Songwriters are) like painters. It’s like expressionism. You want to capture the moment that you live.

Q. How long did it take you to write the songs for “Kinky Boots”?

A. Oh, I don’t know. Four years? Four and a half years?

Q. And how does that compare in terms of effort and energy level to just creating an album of music that stands alone?

A. It depends on the album. If you’re writing the whole album, that could take a year or more. If you’re just recording songs and arranging them on your feet, with musicians around you – and that’s how I arrange – those things can take two and a half weeks. ... The Broadway thing is a totally different process. You can’t really start writing ahead of time, until you see what the heck the book writer (in this case it was Tony winner Harvey Fierstein) has in mind and you talk to everybody – because you have to write songs that will be placed in the story to move the story forward for that particular character. Before the character is written, how’re you gonna write for them?

Q. When’s the last time you saw “Kinky Boots”?

A. I saw Billy Porter’s last performance (on Broadway, as Lola, on Nov. 20). I’ll come in this week to see Wayne do the show. (Comedian Wayne Brady took over the role.)

Q. So, more than three years after the premiere, what strikes you most about the show when you see it now?

A. Well, that the story and the songs still hold up. And people still get excited about it. That, to me, is amazing. But that’s I guess the point: They made a story and I wrote songs for it and we all hope that the songs hold up.

Q. Kind of like when people write pop songs.

A. Exactly. With “Kinky Boots,” I always was so adamant about the hook. I kept saying, “You can’t break the hook. It’s about the hook. It’s about the hook.” The greatest writers of all time were Rodgers and Hammerstein, because they wrote pop songs and you never forgot the hook. But somehow they moved the character from Point A to Point B, and in a sneaky way. So with “Kinky Boots,” I was always thinking, “What’s the sneakiest way to do this, so nobody realizes that’s what I’m doing?”

Q. Well, you fooled me!

A. Thank you. I mean, this is a fun show. It makes you happy. It’s about family – all kinds of families – and I think that’s really nice for the holiday season.

This story was originally published December 21, 2015 at 5:26 PM with the headline "With ‘Kinky Boots,’ Cyndi Lauper is alive and kicking."