Cyndi Lauper - Cyndi Lauper Wins Over Critics With Her Kinky Boots

The Girls Just Wanna Have Fun hitmaker has written the score for the stage show, which is set in an English shoe factory, and the curtain went up on the production in Chicago, Illinois on Wednesday night (17Oct12).

Kinky Boots will have a run in Chicago before transferring to New York next year (13) and critics were full of praise for the pop star's efforts ahead of its Broadway bow.

In a review for the Chicago Sun-Times, Hedy Weiss writes, "It is an ideally crafted, altogether feel-good show - something of a La Cage Aux Folles for the recession-plagued, anti-bullying, 'it will get better' generation. And its solid if predictable storytelling... its accomplished and varied score (an impressive first Broadway effort by Cyndi Lauper, that petite paragon of pop, who has penned several numbers that are sure to become keepers), its conveyor belt-smooth flow... and its strong, winningly genuine cast, all conjoin to make it an engaging entertainment."

Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune also compares Kinky Boots to previous stage hits La Cage Aux Folles and Billy Elliot The Musical, writing, "A warm, likeable, brassy, sentimental, big-hearted and modestly scaled Broadway musical, Kinky Boots updates the issues of La Cage Aux Folles, touts acceptance and tolerance, stands behind a fresh-and-zesty Cyndi Lauper score, rolls out some mighty fine drag queens... and adds a dose of Billy Elliot-esque, Brit-style, emotional-industrial grit."

Jones also predicts Lauper's show will be a hit when it opens at Manhattan's Al Hirschfeld Theatre in April (13), adding, "Kinky Boots won't change the Broadway world but it has the Chicago tryout audience on its side right from the shoe factory's first whirr. And where Chicago goes first, New York usually follows."