Houston's Broadway

Dressing a drag queen: Behind the scenes confessions from Kinky Boots and its wild backstage drama

Kinky Boots, the Tony Awarding winning musical now at the Hobby Center, is a show with dazzling dance numbers performed by women and men, lots of men, wearing six inch heels, but after meeting Kinky Boots star Darius Harper and his star dresser Mikey Piscitelli and getting a behind-the-scenes look at the production, I’ve discovered the greatest dance of all might be one the audience never sees.

While the aerobatic, shimmying drag queens and factory workers sing and dance the two and half hours away on stage, backstage a particular kind of tango happens between Harper and Piscitelli.

Harper plays night club singer Lola and her alter ego Simon (and in some scenes Simon and his alter ego Lola) who is hired by the show’s other main character Charlie Price to design those kinky boots.

All together he wears 13 different looks, eight different pairs of shoes, four wigs and needs five makeup changes.

The show, based on the 2005 movie, contains a classic oddball underdog story at its core, as Charlie attempts to save the failing family shoe factory by finding a new untapped niche market. After a chance meeting with Lola, he soon realizes that unrealized market, men who wear glittering, towering heels, is staring (down at) him right in the face.

The Backstage Show

During the show Harper goes through major transformations from one scene to the next, from full queen regalia to a professional trained boxer in the ring. All together he wears 13 different looks, eight different pairs of shoes, four wigs and needs five makeup changes.

The only way any actor could make it through is with lots of behind the scenes help. And if real backstage life were just like the musical onstage, this would be time to cue the catchy “this could be the start of a great partnership” music because this would be the moment to reveal Mikey Piscitelli, Spring native who 10 years ago went off to New York with Broadway dreams and is now back again as the star dresser doing his own part to make audiences believe in Lola.

Sometimes they get a few minutes to make a change, sometimes only seconds. The frantic changes offstage are their own choreography.

Piscitelli’s duties begin three or four hours before every performance as he thoroughly checks and prepares all 13 of Lola/Simon’s looks. Some of the delicate costumes, like a show stopping hand-beaded red number need constant maintenance. Then during the performance, Piscitelli has to be there at all times to get Harper in and out of these dramatically different looks. Sometimes they get a few minutes to make a change, sometimes only seconds. Piscitelli explained that the frantic changes offstage are their own choreography.

“It’s like a separate, lovely show that only we have the privilege of seeing every night,” says Piscitelli, and then draws a connection between his role, and all the backstage crews' responsibilities, and a major message of Kinky Boots.

“Every show has people doing all sorts of jobs to make the show happen, but with this show I think it’s very special because it’s all about taking pride about whatever you do in life and doing it very well,” Piscitelli says. “Everything all adds up to make the whole picture. You don’t see me during the night but you see my work on him and I try to bring pride to everything I do.”

A Unique Partnership

A star dresser who goes with a musical is a rare position these days. Most traveling productions use local crew in every city. But Harper feels Kinky Boots in particular needs a permanent dresser.

“It’s essentially for a show like this that has such expensive costumes, difficult costumes to work with, quick changes,” Harper says. “It’s important to have someone who knows the show in and out who can govern what happens with the locals and oversee the changes.”

"This poor guy gets kneed in the face sometimes; his fingers get chewed up from the boots, but he’s so gracious and so amazing. I truly couldn’t do it without him.”

Later, as Harper gave me a quick tour of Lola’s wigs, he admitted how reassuring it is for him to have Piscitelli as a constant as they travel from city to city.

“It’s very personally,” he says. “They see you naked, literally not figuratively. You have to have a trusting relationship. I like to be self-sufficient with my costumes but with this show there’s no way I could. So I have to give power to someone else and trust. This poor guy gets kneed in the face sometimes; his fingers get chewed up from the boots, but he’s so gracious and so amazing. I truly couldn’t do it without him.”

And how does Piscitelli feel being back home? He says that with the show in Houston, he felt like he’s come full circle.

“All the theater I saw growing up was here or Jones Hall or the Alley Theater,” Piscitelli admits. “I didn’t see a Broadway show until I moved to New York. I used to stand outside that stage door waiting for autographs.

"I thought I’ve never be a part of that kind of stuff, but now I’m walking in and dressing the star. It doesn’t get much better than that.”

Kinky Boots runs at the Hobby Center through Sunday.

Darius Harper holding Lola's wigs.

Tarra Gaines TUTS Kinky Boots Darius Harper as Lola February 2015 Harper & Lola's wigs

Photo by Tarra Gaines

Darius Harper holding Lola's wigs.

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fall theater preview

Sneak peek at the 2026 fall performance slates for 15 Houston companies

Theatre Under the Stars presents The Music Man

Photo courtesy of Theatre Under the Stars

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For theater and performing arts lovers, late summer is the most wonderful time of the year, as stage companies across the city begin their new 2026-2027 seasons. But before the curtains rise, most of those companies also give us the gift of Houston Theater Week and all those buy-one-get-one-free discounts.

To get ready, CultureMap has put together this fall theater guide with the opening shows and dates for each company, as well as taking an early look at what the rest of the fall and holidays will bring. So grab those discounted tickets for a fall filled with blockbuster musicals, dramas, comedies, as well as lots of classics and audience favorites.

A.D. Players opens with Holly Street (August 19)
The spiritual and family friendly theater company began its season a bit early with a poignant world premiere set in small town Kentucky in the 1940s after World War II. Holly Street tells the story of two sisters at Christmas time and two unexpected guests.

The company takes a break for a month and then offers one of the funniest, yet heartwarming holiday plays for all ages withThe Best Christmas Pageant Ever, the beloved comedy about a children’s play that goes wrong.

Houston Ballet opens with Pecos Bill (September 11)
HB says howdy to a great fall season with a mixed rep program that holds something for all dance tastes. The performance includes Stanton Welch’s rollicking ballet version of cowboy folklore, Pecos Bill’s adventures. Performances also feature George Balanchine’s elegant and dynamic Symphonie Concertante, and an HB debut, Meadow, a work by celebrated choreographer Lar Lubovitch.

For the first full story ballet of the fall (September 24), HB brings the opulence of Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s now classic and tragic Mamon, the doomed love story between an irresistibly beautiful femme fatale and impoverished student. Of course, in November, it wouldn’t be the holidays without Stanton Welch’s version of The Nutcracker Ballet that brings the story’s focus back to the adventurous Clara.

4th Wall Theatre opens with Proof (September 11)
The first of several Pulitzer Prize-winning plays produced this season comes from this intimate stage. Playwright David Auburn’s Proof is the story of the daughter of a genius mathematician who might have inherited both his aptitude for math and his mental instability. The play travels back and forth through the present and past to study the formulas of family, loss, and love

Over the years, 4th Wall has produced several wild and moving adaptations of Jane Austen novels. This year, it will present Are the Bennet Girls Ok? This new version of the Pride and Prejudice story, that had a recent Off-Broadway debut to much critical praise, tells the Bennet girls’ marriage quests from their mother’s point of view.

Main Street Theater opens with Cold War Choir Practice (September 12)
Also earning lots of recent off-Broadway buzz, this genre-defying comedy with music is one of the most intriguing picks for the fall. In Reagan’s America, a young girl is embroiled in intrigue when her estranged uncle, a prominent Black conservative, brings his mysteriously ill, white wife home for the holidays and forces long-simmering tensions within the family to boil.

From Victorian England to a fast food joint, theaters across the world and certainly in Houston have put Dickens’s Christmas Carol into a multitude of settings. For the holidays, MST invites Houstonians to a Dublin pub for An Irish Carol, where rich owner David has lost touch with his own humanity in the interest of self-protection and material success. Now on Christmas Eve, a voice from the past will ask David to look at his relationships in the past, present, and possible future to perhaps change his life for the better.

Theatre Under the Stars opens presenting The Music Man (September 15)
TUTS changes its usual mix of more self-produced shows than touring shows, leaning in on presenting this season. The season begins with this classic musical comedy about a charming con man who gets conned himself by small town sincerity and love.

The touring hits continue in October with Mrs. Doubtfire, the musical based on the Robin Williams comedy about a divorced man who disguises himself as a British nanny to take care of his kids. Then for the holidays, TUTS brings back its own leviathan-sized production of Disney’s The Little Mermaid for under the sea family fun with a cast filled with Houston singing sensations, including students from the TUTS schools.

Rec Room opens with Amadeus (September 17)
The east-ish downtown theater company decided to take some time off after last year's productions of Angels in American to switch from a calendar year season to the traditional fall/spring season that most Houston companies use. Now they’re back and celebrating their 10 year anniversary with plays Houstonians haven’t seen in quite a while, or ever, on a local professional stage. The season begins with the now classic 20th century play about the (mostly one-sided) rivalry between composers Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and its exploration of jealousy and the nature of genius.

For the ultimate holiday show counter programming, Rec Room will produce a new adaptation of Nobel Prize-winning Italian playwright Dario Fo’s The Accidental Death of an Anarchist. It’s Christmas time at the police station, as Rec Room reimagines Fo’s groundbreaking political farce of the 1970s as a contemporary American satire infused with detective noir, Cold War paranoia, and sharp absurdity.

Ensemble Theatre opens with Purpose (September 18)
Ensemble celebrates its 50th season with this recent Best Play Tony and Pulitzer Prize winner by Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins about a prominent and political Black family, the Jenkins. While the patriarch was a leader in the Civil Rights movement, the adult sons are having trouble living up to their father’s legacy. Generational aspirations come to a comic clash for one particularly awkward but purposeful family dinner.

For the holidays, the company brings back an audience favorite, the joyful and soulful A Motown Christmas, which melds Motown hits and choreography with traditional holiday classics.

Stages opens with Come From Away (September 19)
Based on the true story, this poignant and hopeful musical tells the story of a small town in Newfoundland that rallied together to host thousands of stranded international travelers after planes were grounded September 11, 2001. It’s been a few years since Come From Away toured nationally, so Houstonians are definitely looking forward to seeing Stages begin its season with an intimate and homegrown production.

In October, Stages jumps from a musical with a large cast of characters to The Roommate, the Jen Silverman comedy about two 50-something women with very different personalities and life experiences who begin living together. For the holidays, it brings back another audience favorite with all the music, fun, and wild plots found in The Great American Trailer Park Christmas Musical.

Alley Theatre opens fall with Romeo and Juliet (September 25)
While technically the thrilling Girl on the Train began its 26-27 season, the Alley heats up the fall with the play that originated the term star-crossed lovers and is arguably the greatest romantic tragedy in literature. The entire resident acting company will take the stage in Shakespeare’s wrenching tale of young lovers crushed between their warring families.

In October, the Alley leaps from a classic of world literature to a world premiere satire with Uhuru. This play explores very contemporary themes of access and identity as it follows a group of climbers up Mount Kilimanjaro. Uhuru was developed as part of the Alley All New play reading season. For the holidays, look for both Alley artistic director, Rob Melrose’s, lovely adaptation of A Christmas Carol as well as its very contemporary Texas version of The Night Shift Before Christmas.

Broadway at the Hobby Center opens with The Sound of Music (September 29)
Musical lovers might want to see if the Hobby Center will rent a room this fall, because the TUTS and Broadway combined schedules will fill Sarofim Hall with the sound of music almost every week, including the actual Sound of Music. One of the most beloved musicals of all time, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s story of the von Trapp family and the woman who brought music into their lives tours the country again with new direction from three-time Tony Award winner Jack O’Brien (Hairspray).

Then, just in time for spooky season, the ghost-est with the mostest, the irrepressible Beetlejuice, returns to haunt Houston after being a surprising comic hit a few seasons ago. Then, the Tony Award-winning Buena Vista Social Club arrives. Depicting the backstage story of the Grammy-winning album of the same name, the show transports audiences into the heart of Cuba, beyond the glitz of the Tropicana into the soul of the music.

Houston Grand Opera opens with Susannah (October 23)
Continuing its centenary celebration for the great American composer Carlisle Floyd, HGO opens its season with this tragic beauty of an opera inspired by Floyd’s childhood as a minister’s son. With a score infused with revival hymns and Appalachian folksong, the opera depicts life in a small Tennessee town and the gossip, judgement, and hypocrisy that leads to the ruin of one innocent woman.

HGO elevates spooky season with upGounod’s masterpiece Faust in late October. This production from acclaimed Scottish director David McVicar reimagines Faust as a tormented composer in Belle Époque Paris, before making a deal with the devil for youth and earthly pleasures.

Other fall debuts

While it might only be producing one show this fall, Houstonians still have these plays from some of the city's mid-sized and smaller companies on their must-see lists. In early September, Mildred’s Umbrella gets mad with Jen Silverman’s Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties, a sharp comedy with its synopsis in the title as it depicts the lives of five very different women all named Betty. The recently announced Catastrophic Theatre season scheduled the majority of its shows in 2027, but in September the company will revive Eugene Ionesco’s epic absurdest play, Rhinoceros, about a small town whose citizens begin to transform into a herd of giant horned mammals.

In mid-October, Dirt Dogs presents one of those great dinner parties from hell plays with Donald Margulies’ Pulitzer Prize-winning Dinner with Friends about one couple’s divorce that leads their best friends to question their own marriages. Also in October, Classical Theatre opens its season with one of George Bernard Shaw’s wittiest works from his “Plays Pleasant” collection, Arms and the Man, about a young woman who has romanticized war until she decides to shelter a war-weary enemy soldier.

Photo courtesy of Theatre Under the Stars

Theatre Under the Stars presents The Music Man