After performing on Broadway and in cities across the country, the curtain has come down on Stephen Carrasco’s thigh-high leather boots for the last time. Carrasco has been the dance captain for the hit musical “Kinky Boots” for over two years, but now, nine years after graduating from Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts with a degree in musical theater, Carrasco is preparing to return to Broadway. The Daily Orange spoke with him to learn more about his favorite memories and backstage gossip.

The Daily Orange: Could you explain what the show is about?

S.C.: So “Kinky Boots” is about a man called Charlie Price who inherits his father’s shoe factory. It’s going under, so he has to find a way to save the factory and he does so by teaming up with a drag queen from London, and they decide to make women shoes for men who dress as women. That’s how they try to save the factory, and it’s a journey that the two of them take, Lola and Charlie, and they learn so much from each other along the way. The show really just shows that you can really change the world when you change your mind.

The D.O.: What does being the dance captain involve?

S.C.: So being a dance captain basically is that I’m in charge of maintaining the choreography as the show runs through the year, while the choreographer and associate choreographer are away. So I have to watch the show regularly and make sure that people are still doing the choreography as it was intended when it was set when we opened over a year ago. Also as the dance captain, any new company members that are hired, I’m in charge of training them and putting them into the show as replacements. So I teach the show, we are in rehearsal for several weeks together and then we put them in the show.

The D.O.: How much are you onstage?

S.C.:: I’m first swing so I understudy the 12 men in the ensemble, and I would say I’m on at least four to five times a week. It really depends on the week; sometimes I’m on for every show. It just depends on whether someone is on vacation or if someone gets injured or if someone’s sick.

 

The D.O.: What would be your dream show?

S.C.: I think I’ve just done it, I’ve just done it for two and a half years, I mean “Kinky Boots” is the greatest show I’ve ever been a part of. And I say that mostly because it’s the most fun show I’ve ever been in. It’s pure joy every single night. Watching the audience react to us, the people that have never seen the show before, just watching audience members seeing it for the first time as an acting company member is one of the greatest thrills of my career. You don’t get a lot of shows like this in your career.

The D.O.: Which did you prefer, being associated with the Broadway production or the touring company?

S.C.: They’re both wonderful in their own ways. I mean, when I joined the Broadway company, I got to do all the really, really fun stuff when you do a Broadway show like perform in the Tony Awards and perform on the “Today” show and the crazy kind of fun TV things that are involved with the opening of any Broadway show. I was in the opening of the Tony Awards on Neil Patrick Harris’ right arm and I was on the cover of the art section of The New York Times. So that was all so unbelievably exciting.

I think being on tour has brought a whole new level to it because now I’m seeing audiences outside of New York react to the show and we’ve taken this everywhere, including the Deep South, where we currently are and there is a very specific message that not everyone is ready to hear and I think audiences in Texas for example need this message a lot more than the audiences in New York. I’m glad the audiences in New York love it but I really feel like we’re making a difference on the road.

The D.O.: The show just hit 1,000 performances. Just how big of an achievement is that?

S.C.: I mean that’s humongous. So few new Broadway musicals can ever get that far. That’s not really a common thing when you’re opening a Broadway show. Most Broadway shows I would wager to say, I don’t know the statistics, but I would say that most new shows in New York barely make it through a year. To say you’ve made through almost three is humongous. It’s just a testament to how wonderful the show is.

The D.O.: What is your favorite backstage story?

S.C.: We had Billy Porter join us in Pittsburgh for a week. He won the Tony Award for best actor in a musical for “Kinky Boots” on Broadway. He came and joined our tour as our lead character Lola for a week because Pittsburgh is his hometown. Just watching our company of people, who had seen Billy in the show before but had never really done the show with Billy, especially now they’d been on the road for almost a year and they knew the show so well at this point, watching them experience the show with Billy was so incredible.

Published on September 7, 2015 at 7:42 pm

Contact Rachel: rcgilber@syr.edu