‘Kinky Boots’ creators Cyndi Lauper and Harvey Fierstein kick back

Reporting from San Francisco —  Cyndi Lauper knows what she wants: good lighting. Harvey Fierstein knows what he wants too: “Whatever she wants,” he said with a laugh.

The two were hamming it up for a photo shoot at the Orpheum Theatre, where their hit Broadway musical “Kinky Boots” will play after its Los Angeles run this month. The cavernous VIP room was quiet and nearly empty, but the two larger-than-life entertainers easily filled the space.

With her still-platinum hair (today in dreads) and black leather jacket studded with sequins, Lauper, 61, brimmed with ‘80s pop star panache; Fierstein, 60, with his broad chest and bellowing, deep, gravely voice, commanded the room as if he were onstage. They took turns poking their heads through the slit in a blue velvet photo backdrop, making faces for the lens until Lauper brought the action to a screeching halt.

“Hey, buddy, pal,” she challenged the photographer in that nasally Queens accent. “Over here. The light’s way bettah.”

She picked up the round light diffuser from the photographer’s bag and marched over a few feet. Fierstein rolled his eyes affectionately, trailing behind.

“Oh, daughter … Christina,” Fierstein cooed. “I call her that — daughter. It’s our thing.”

“Come ooon,” Lauper whined. “We haven’t got all day. The light — it’s like pehfect now.”

They collapsed onto a velvet love seat and Lauper tossed her legs over Fierstein’s lap. He massaged her calves as they continued mugging for the camera, not skipping a beat.

Fierstein and Lauper bring that well-oiled chemistry to “Kinky Boots.” He penned the book for the Tony-winning musical, and she wrote the music and lyrics. The production debuted on Broadway in spring 2013 and went on to win six Tonys, including best musical and score. The national tour is led by Jerry Mitchell, who won the Tony for his “Kinky Boots” choreography and was nominated for his direction, and will open at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre on Tuesday.

Based on the 2005 British film “Kinky Boots,” which in turn was based on a BBC Two documentary series episode from 1999, the musical is about a struggling shoe factory owner, Charlie Price (Steven Booth in the national tour), who joins forces with the drag queen Lola (Kyle Taylor Parker) to revive the family business with fetish footwear for men.

When Fierstein, a four-time Tony-winner who wrote the 1983 Broadway musical “La Cage aux Folles,” reimagined “Kinky Boots” for the stage, he didn’t see it as a musical at first. It was only after watching the British film several times that he honed in on the family thread and ran with the themes of community and acceptance, he said, something that’s deeply personal to him and Lauper. Lauper’s True Colors Fund, aiding gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youths who are homeless, was partly inspired by Fierstein’s longtime efforts as a gay rights activist.

“My whole life, I was watching him,” Lauper said. “On movies, on television, he was one of the only people that was sayin’ stuff about what was goin’ on with human rights when it wasn’t popular.”

It was Fierstein’s idea to have Lauper write the score for “Kinky Boots.” He’d seen her perform on Broadway in the Roundabout Theatre Company’s “The Threepenny Opera” in 2006, so he knew she was no stranger to theater. He also knew that, like him, she’d grown up listening to Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals in her basement while singing along in the mirror. The two native New Yorkers were longtime fans of each other’s work dating to the early ‘80s, and they have been friends since 2003, when Lauper performed “True Colors” for the AIDS research foundation amfAR, which was honoring Fierstein.

Fierstein felt Lauper, in particular, would connect with the material.

“‘Kinky Boots’ is about two guys who had fathers that wanted their sons to turn out a certain way — and neither son wanted to take that path,” Fierstein said. “It was such a natural for Cyndi because she understands having to reinvent yourself and having to make a place in the world.”

His instincts paid off: With her Tony for best score, Lauper earned the distinction of being the first woman to win solo in that category.

Her songs in the show are varied, incorporating pop, soul, new wave, even tango.

“There’s a song for everyone in there — they all have different styles,” she said. “And there’s a character for everyone too, because it’s inclusive.”

Lauper and Fierstein live in Connecticut and mainly worked by phone while writing “Kinky Boots” together, largely because they were juggling other projects and their traveling schedules were not in sync. During the four or so years it took to write “Kinky Boots,” Fierstein also wrote the musical “Newsies” and the play “Casa Valentina.” Lauper recorded the album “Memphis Blues,” wrote a memoir and toured internationally.

Which, ultimately, is how Lauper got her nickname.

“You’re so busy doing your real life, and then all of a sudden you have to go into this fantasyland that we’re creating here,” Fierstein says. “So you have to pull each other back. I’m ‘Mommie Dearest.’ I’d call her up and say: ‘Christina. I need those lyrics!’”

It worked. Lauper, who frequently comes up with new melodies while doing the dishes or washing her hair, captured snippets of new songs on her phone and sent them to Fierstein, or she simply sang to him in voice mail messages.

She found the fluidity and “toe-tapping warmth” of Broadway liberating compared with writing pop songs for a record company, she said. Executives, she said, are always asking, “‘Where’s the hook?” And, “How come you’re singing that? You have to sing one kinda music.”

“Harvey said, ‘There are no rules,’ Lauper recalled. “It was freeing. It was great.”

“Kinky Boots” may be touring nationally, but Fierstein insisted that the catchy tunes won’t play differently city to city.

“As long as they’re human beings,” Fierstein said, “they’ll get something out of it.”

Fierstein won’t talk about what he’s working on. His most recent play, “Casa Valentina,” about a colony in the Catskills where heterosexual men dressed as women, opened on Broadway in April under the direction of Tony winner Joe Mantello (“Wicked”) and closed in June.

Lauper is working on dance music, she said — not an album, per se, but individual songs she might release digitally. She also may work on a second memoir about her early childhood.

Top of mind for both artists, however, is another musical theater collaboration to showcase the plethora of talented, older female entertainers they know.

“There’s a ton of women who don’t work, who are great performers,” Fierstein said. “I’m looking forward to writing something that would allow them to really shine.”

“We’ve been looking,” Lauper said.

“And we’ll keep looking — until we find the right project,” Fierstein said.

deborah.vankin@latimes.com