'Kinky Boots' to end Broadway run in April

Come April, those boots are walking. Producers Daryl Roth and Hal Luftig announced Friday that “Kinky Boots” will end its Broadway run April 7 at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre. When it closes, it will have run for just over six years, its 2,507 regular performances and 34 previews making the musical the 25th longest-running production on Broadway.

Based on real events and adapted from a 2005 film, the show tells the story of a young man who inherited a struggling shoe factory and his unlikely alliance with a drag queen, which results in a line of high-heeled — and, yes, very kinky — boots. Written by Harvey Fierstein with music by Cyndi Lauper, the show won six Tonys, including best musical.  

“When we first set out to make this show, we never could have imagined the success it would have here on Broadway and around the world,” said Fierstein and Lauper in a statement.

Looking back on the show’s first performance in Chicago in the fall of 2012, director and choreographer Jerry Mitchell recalled “one of those magical nights in the theater, when the material connects with its audiences in exactly the way you hope for.”

While acknowledging that it is always hard to “say farewell to a beloved production,” Mitchell said he is gratified that “Kinky Boots” is “leaving a more accepting world than the one it was born into.”