Photo courtesy of J. Stubbs Photography (https://jstubbsphotographyvb.com/)

“Ladies, gentleman, and those who have yet to make up their minds…”

So begins our 2024-2025 HRACT Award cycle, with the first musical of the year being “Kinky Boots” at the Little Theatre of Virginia Beach.  This show, about a shoe factory in Northampton, England on its last legs and its owner’s attempts to save it, is a good time from beginning to end, with just the right amount of morals regarding the acceptance of all people thrown in. 

That shoe factory owner is Charlie Price, played by Zack Kattwinkel, who has recently been forced to take over the factory when his father died suddenly. Charlie doesn’t seem to have a passion for basically anything in his life, to include his fiancé, Nicola (played by Grace Altman, who does a nice job of demonstrating a total lack of chemistry with Kattwinkel, so nobody in the audience ends up on team Nicola).  When Charlie finds out the factory is in deep financial trouble from his executive team (led by George, played by Sandy Lawrence), he suddenly finds a bit of passion for the factory – not in the shoes, but for saving the jobs of the people who work there, his community.  This transition is nicely played by Kattwinkel, who also finds himself drawing the interest of one of his employees, Lauren (done hilariously by Olivia Florian, whose manic version of falling in love is an audience favorite).

Of course, all this soul-searching by Charlie doesn’t necessarily help the factory’s financials.  In a moment of fate, Charlie meets Lola, a fabulous drag queen in London.  Lance Hawkins, playing Lola, commands the stage with confidence from the moment he arrives, and in every moment he is onstage thereafter.  Towering over the rest of the cast, due both to his tall frame and the massive heels he wears, Hawkins is perfectly unmistakable as he agrees to help Charlie design and create kinky boots that can stand up to the rigors of being worn by a drag queen. 

Lola grew up as Simon in a different blue collar English town, and his father never accepted him for who he was.  Hawkins’s acting is moving as Lola’s story emerges throughout the night, and you can feel his hurt when these memories return through some derogatory comments thrown out by Don, one of the “tough guy” workers at the factory (a hard part to pull off, as this is a small-minded villain who actually exists in the real world, but done very well by James Bryan).

Our favorite parts of the show revolved around the multiple musical interludes led by Lola and his fellow drag queen angels.  These are massively entertaining and well-choreographed dance numbers (shout out to Coral Mapp for the choreography of the show, and the cast for exactly zero tripping despite the massive heels being worn throughout), and the rollicking atmosphere was enhanced by fun and clever lighting tricks, put together by Derrion Hawkins (an HRACT Award nominee for his performance on-stage in “The Color Purple”).  The hair/makeup/costuming, especially for the queens, was wonderful throughout, a big win for the team of Connor Payne, Pamela Jacobson-Bowhers, and Kobie Smith (the latter of which also directed the show, and is nominated for two HRACT Awards for last season’s “A Gentleman’s Guide”).  And the set’s large trifold pieces were very effective and allowed for quick scene changes, a nice design by Kobie Smith and Sandy Lawrence. 

In the end, it doesn’t matter what you wear, as long as it makes you feel truly you.  For LTVB, that meant dressing up and putting on some very high heeled kinky boots – a great way to start our new year.