Timothy Ware performs the role of thigh-high red boot-wearing drag queen Lola in the Tony Award-winning Kinky Boots, playing this week through April 23 at the Kravis Center’s Dreyfoos Hall. He was the standby for Lola in the original Broadway cast, where he performed the role 186 times. Just don’t ask him about his debut in the show.
“The first time I did the role, I don’t remember anything about it. It was all adrenaline,” Ware says a bit sheepishly. “It’s like when you get in your car and you start driving. You get to the place where you’re supposed to be and you ask yourself, ‘Wait, how did I get here?’ But thankfully, I was able to navigate, due to the great rehearsal process, the guidance that I received throughout. So I was able to get lost in my adrenaline and make it to the finish line.”
In the show, Lola (né Simon) helps a British bloke save his shoe factory by retooling the assembly line for a niche market – fashion-conscious cross-dressers.
The role, says Ware, is a singing and dancing challenge, but foremost it is an acting challenge. For the character is really three roles in one. “The thing that I’ve tried to do my best is figuring out who is Lola onstage versus who is Lola offstage in everyday life versus who is Simon,” he says. “So I see three different parts to the role. It’s important for me to make the distinction, because whether people understand what goes into creating the role, they will see an honest character onstage from it. The result becomes evident, whether they know how I got there.”
And then there’s the more obvious challenge, learning to move about in high-heeled boots. Before Kinky Boots, Ware had never worn heels. “Yes, it is the first time. And possibly the last,” he adds ruefully.
“The heels wear the feet and legs down. I do not envy women at all. I don’t know why they put themselves in such torture devices. They’re very sexy, so I do get why, but they put themselves through hell for it.”
Lola must look poised and comfortable in heels, an impression that took Ware a while to achieve. “Well, they started me out in training heels, which were basically two-inch character shoes. I struggled in those for a while until it just finally clicked. I have a dancer’s background as well, so that helped with the process of figuring out how to maneuver in the shoes. Now it’s a piece of cake,” he says, adding quickly, “I’m always icing my feet after the show.”
Even when Ware was a standby for Tony winner Billy Porter, director-choreographer Jerry Mitchell encouraged him to make the role his own. “Billy Porter is such an amazing talent, so I felt a lot of pressure to try to live up to that. I’m not Billy Porter, nor do I try to be him,” says Ware. “It was great that Jerry Mitchell allowed me to find my Lola and trusted me to represent her in a way that also represented me.”
Before he was ever involved with theater, Ware was an athlete. “My father put me in sports, but my passion was in the arts,” he recalls. “On that level I can relate to feeling like ‘I’m Not My Father’s Son,’ which is a main song that we sing in the show. The beautiful thing is that most guys understand that song whether they’re gay, straight or otherwise. For whatever reason we as men have tried to live up to our father’s ideals and tried to be like them until we found our own way, our own voice, our own path.”
Ware feels that there is a responsibility that comes with playing Lola/Simon. “The responsibility is for me to make sure that that story is being told properly, so that those who come into the theater resistant to the idea of accepting others for who they are, leave changed,” he explains. “Maybe reevaluating how they perceive the world and those around them.”
As he tours the country, Ware finds audiences and their reactions to Kinky Boots can vary a great deal. Occasionally theatergoers can be outright resistant to the show. “It depends on the city – how liberal, how conservative it may be. But my thing is I think it’s important to have the resistance, because otherwise we would just be preaching to the choir,” he says. “Then there’s no point of doing the show. It’s more important to reach those that are a little resistant. And those that are resistant, by the end of Act One, they’ve come around.”
Ware leaves the tour in mid-June, when he will return to New York to focus on a new musical he wrote the music, lyrics and book for, A Taste of Chocolate. As he describes the show, “It follows a character named Coffee in Montgomery, Alabama. After an unarmed black kid is killed by police officers, the community asks Coffee to lead a peaceful protest, but he’s afraid if they discover he’s gay, the entire movement could fall apart.”
Yes, he concedes with a chuckle, the role of Coffee just happens to be ideal for himself to play. “No coincidence. You write from a place that you know.”
A Taste of Chocolate will be informed by Ware’s experiences performing in Kinky Boots. As he says of the latter, “It’s a show about love and acceptance. Not only that, it’s done in a way that’s thoroughly entertaining. It’s not a show about drag queens, it’s a show about humanity. Most people come in expecting one thing and receive another. There’s something in it for everyone.”
KINKY BOOTS, Kravis Center Dreyfoos Hall, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach. Tonight through Sunday, April 23. $27 and up. 561-832-7469.