“Kinky Boots” is forging a path on Broadway, with pop icon Cyndi Lauper leading the way.
The Lauper-scored musical won six Tony Awards — including best musical and best original score — on June 9, and its original Broadway cast recording debuted on the charts dated June 15 at No. 51 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on Top Cast Albums.
With 7,000 albums sold its first week, according to Nielsen SoundScan, “Kinky Boots” became the highest-charting cast album since “The Book of Mormon” in 2011. (It currently sits at No. 128 on the Billboard 200, with 15,000 sold total.)
The “Kinky Boots” cast album debuted the week before the Tonys telecast, so the initial impact of the show — felt in the album’s second chart week — was muted by the set’s natural second-week decline (down 52%). In its third week on the tally, in the first full week after the Tonys, the set garnered a 5% increase, selling 4,000 copies. Box-office sales for the musical grew by 4% ($62,775) during the week prior to the Tonys, according to data from the Broadway League, giving the show its best box-office week to date.
As the first solo female to win best original score, Lauper wrote in an email, “We were already doing great and selling out, but this helps even more people around the country know about our show.”
That show was born from an unlikely place: A little-known film of the same name, about a man who saves the family business by making men’s high heels.
“We knew it was something we believed in and the music was really strong, so we hoped it would translate to a wider audience,” Masterworks senior director of marketing Scott Farthing says.
To gain mainstream attention, the label created a making-of featurette and two music videos featuring Lauper. One of those clips, “Sex Is in the Heel,” was promoted on Vevo ahead of the Tonys, racking up 26,000 views in one weekend, and shown on “E! News.”
Additionally, there were CD giveaways on AC and adult top 40 radio, and the label continues to court concert-goers on Lauper’s 30th-anniversary “She’s So Unusual” tour through targeted online advertising.
The label is also focused on the LGBT community, in which the singer is very active. That included hosting “Kinky Boots”-themed nights and creating a dance remix of the Billy Porter-sung “Land of Lola” by Wayne G. and LFB that was serviced to gay clubs and bars.