Christine Quinn may be the Democratic front-runner for mayor, but there’s one patch of New York where she’d face some formidable competition: Broadway, an area that would handily be won by Harvey Fierstein. He can’t mosey down a street in Times Square without causing packs of middle-aged women to shout, “Harvey, we love you!”
As we left Becco the other night, he practically caused a riot at the coat check. “We’re going to see your show!” the ladies screamed.
“Thank you!” he said, then looked at me and added: “My people . . . ”
On this particular night, Fierstein’s moseying over to the Al Hirschfeld to check out a preview of “Kinky Boots,” the musical for which he wrote the book and Cyndi Lauper, making an auspicious Broadway debut, the score. They’ve been at the theater most nights, fine-tuning a show that received strong reviews last fall in Chicago.
Based on the 2005 movie about the owner of a foundering shoe factory who teams up with a transvestite designer, “Kinky Boots” opens April 4.
“Tonight, you’re going to hear a new line!” Fierstein says in that famously gravelly voice. “I wrote, ‘Pat, put that in the storage room.’ It used to be, ‘Put that in the storage room.’ But now the audience knows the character’s name is Pat.”
“Brilliant!” I say. “That’s problem-solving in the theater.”
“Yes, that is problem-solving in the theater,” he replies. We pass by an open cellar in front of a deli. “If I push you into that cellar, is that problem-solving in the theater, too? Ha!”
“Hi, Harvey!” the ticket taker says as he walks into the theater. Like all good pols, Fierstein has a knack for remembering names. He knows everybody on his show, from the cast and crew to the theater staff.
As we settle into our seats, several people turn around and shout, “Hi, Harvey!”
“I hear it’s great!” he tells them.
The first act goes off without a hitch. Fierstein hums along to Lauper’s ’80s-style pop score, laughing occasionally at his own jokes. He flinches only once — when an actor mangles a line.
At the intermission, he’s besieged by well-wishers and autograph seekers.
“What was the last show you were in, Harvey?” a man asks. “Was it ‘Fiddler’? Or that other one?’ ”
“I don’t know,” Fierstein says, laughing. “Go back to your seat, and look at the Playbill!”
I tell him the show seems aimed at the typical Broadway audience — middle-aged white women.
“Oh, I think everybody will like this show,” he replies. On cue, an older Jewish man tells Fierstein the show is terrific. “See what I mean!” Fierstein exclaims. “He’s black, and he loves it!”
While Fierstein holds forth at the back of the theater, Lauper’s holed up in a bunker-like room in the basement, fretting about the orchestrations. She’s added a xylophone to one of the songs tonight, and it’s not quite right.
“The first verse of ‘Bad Girl’ was very clear,” she says, “but the second murky. It’s very hard getting them to understand the different kinds of songs I’m writing.”
The actors? I wonder. “No!” she says. “The musicians! I want them to go for it! But they will. They’re very talented.”
The second act whips along and, at the curtain call, a delighted audience leaps to its feet. Standing ovations are par for the course these days, so Fierstein has another way of gauging the reaction. “Look, they’re staying,” he says. “They’re not running up the aisle to catch their bus. That means they like it.”
They do. One man says, “This was so much more fun than ‘Matilda.’ ”
Fierstein roars. “There’s your quote!” (For the record, I saw “Matilda” in London, and it’s a terrific show, too. But “Kinky Boots” is going to give it some competition. Let the fun begin!)
After the show opens, Lauper’s going to tour with her band — “That’s my real job,” she says. But Fierstein plans to swing by the theater now and then to greet his fans.
Should he ever ask them, “How’m I doin’?” the answer will be a resounding “Fabulous, darling!”