[music: “Sex Is In the Heel” Original Cast Recording]
This weekend marked the opening of America’s largest student-produced musical Northwestern’s 81st Annual Dolphin Show. This year’s show? Kinky Boots, which follows the story of Charlie Price, who inherits his family’s shoe making company after his father’s death. Price, who would rather do pretty much anything than make shoes, has a change of heart when he meets Lola, a drag queen from London. Through upbeat songs about shoes and heart wrenching ballads about not living up to expectations, Charlie and Lola revolutionize the idea of drag queens and unite unlikely friends.
[Music: “Land of Lola” Original Cast Recording]
Starring as Lola in this year’s production, fourth-year theatre student Matheus Barbee has dreamed of this moment for a long time.
MATHEUS BARBEE: “I’ve been telling everyone, like, this is my dream role. Like, I have wanted to play this for years. I brought in material from this show for my music theater classes, like, as a sophomore. So, this show has been really close to me for a really long time.”
Freshman theatre and economics student Diane Li, who plays Nicola in the show, was also excited to find out she made the bill.
DIANE LI: “Dolphin Show was one of my top choices, and I was really, really happy that I got casted as Nicola, and when I saw the cast list come out, I basically was running down my stairs in my dorm room. It was a really, really surreal moment. And I was really excited to start the process.”
Kinky Boots gained major success on Broadway for its boundary-breaking presence. Winning six Tony Awards, including one for “Best Musical”, its popularity was hard to ignore. One of the main themes in Kinky Boots is the idea of acceptance, and how it relates to gender norms and what it truly means to be a man or a woman. For Barbee, the story hits close to home.
BARBEE: “I can just say, like, it is really rare for Black queer men to get to be at the center of a story and to have their identity validated by the story and not made a mockery of, not made a fool of, but to be explored as human beings is really beautiful. I’m so grateful for, um, Billy Porter, who originated the role, J. Harrison Ghee, who I’ve taken a lot of inspiration from, who recently became the first non binary actor to win “Best Actor in a Musical” at the Tony Awards. I feel so grateful for them doing this first, so that I have the opportunity as an undergraduate to play a role that is so unapologetically proud of my identity. And that’s just something that I’ve never gotten to experience before to this level.”
All of the characters in the musical are changed upon Lola’s arrival, as she teaches them how to be comfortable in their own skin and accept everyone for who they are. Lola is changed too, by connecting with Charlie, despite seemingly being from entirely different worlds. Lola and Charlie discover that they are maybe not that different, and look great doing it. With almost 200 students involved in making this show a success, the costumes, set design and performances are truly one of a kind.
Ryan Nguyen, along with Daniel Maton and Rachel Olkin produced this year’s Dolphin Show, which started preparations back in February of 2023. Nguyen, who has been involved in the Dolphin Show since his freshman year at Northwestern, spoke about what it has been like to watch this show come to life.
RYAN NGUYEN: “It’s just so crazy to see what started with just the three of us and our initial brainstorm and everything kind of led to, you know, over 180 people on the team and this huge, massive production with like thousands of people coming to see, so that’s really, really special. That’s something that’s really going to stick with me for a while. Everyone makes such large contributions to the team and it’s so great being able to meet everyone and correspond with everyone and kind of see how all the different pieces really come together over the year. I think a really special thing with Dolphin is the community aspect. And you know, we have people from all different schools and, and majors and backgrounds, but you know, everyone, we’re all coming together to bring Kinky Boots to Northwestern.”
Mark Park, Wigs, Hair, and Makeup Designer and Supervisor helped bring all of the iconic looks from Broadway to life on the Cahn Auditorium stage, but this time, a little differently.
MARK PARK: “It’s actually so interesting because I think we took zero inspiration from the original Kinky Boots. our director wanted to set this rendition, this version of Kinky Boots today, in the year 2024, but the original Kinky Boots was set back in around like 2012. So, I didn’t take any inspiration from those designs, because I felt like drag has evolved so much since then, that it wouldn’t make sense for me to take any ideas from that. We eventually decided, since the show is about the boots, it’s about the heels, and it’s called Kinky Boots, we thought everything should be derived from the boots.”
Some people go for the fashion, some people for the music, and some for the people in the show. But, why should you go see Kinky Boots?
BARBEE: “You’re gonna come for fabulous Drag Queens and you’re gonna stay for a story about heart, friendship, about family, and connection.”
NGUYEN: “Lola’s first line that she sings in the show is ‘leave expectations at the door.’ So I kind of want to tell that to the audience to like, kind of leave your expectations at the door and just come on in and have your mind open and your hearts ready to kind of be changed.”
[music: “Raise You Up/Just Be” Original Cast Recording]
For WNUR News, I’m Jessica Watts.
