Sometimes, you don't know what you think you know

I grew up in Arvada. I know its people. And when I sat down for last night’s performance of "Kinky Boots" at the Arvada Center, I knew the couple next to me. Not their names, but I KNEW them. I knew the look. The attitude. The beliefs. One pointed overheard comment before the show, and I had them all figured out. They were like 482 other couples I sat next to at my uncle’s bar in the old Arvada Plaza. The kind of people who say what they say right out loud because, hey, this is Arvada. Where it’s safe to say … exactly the wrong thing.

The other thing I knew is that they weren’t ready for this. Not for a British musical that welcomes difference with big, accepting arms lined with spikes, sparkles and gummy bracelets.

But not long after the show began, I realized I did not know them at all. I did not know their names, their stories or their struggles. I did not know what it was that brought them there that night or what they wanted – or perhaps needed – to get out of it. Because from the moment the drag queen Lola first entered the stage, the tears started down the woman’s face. As the show delivered its message of tolerance and courage with a stiletto pounded by a sledgehammer, the tears just started flowing. Every song, every anthemic line of dialogue was connecting with whatever journey she’s on … and the tears just kept flowing. She was wiping away tears like she were watering a garden. All along, her husband (I presume) had one hand firmly over her shoulder and the other clasping her hand with a grip that never broke except to applaud. Clearly this show was speaking to something very real in their lives. At intermission, the curious journalist and humanoid in me so badly wanted to just say hey, ask them their story and offer some support. But I also felt something sacred was happening, and best to let them live in that protected space. Because that, too, is the Arvada, or at least the Arvada Center, I know: A safe, welcoming place for catharsis, enlightenment, entertainment and inclusion.

And in the second act, the woman’s tears turned to joy. When the story climaxes and the crowd is inevitably brought to their feet, these two quintessential, iconic representations of everything I thought I knew the Arvada of my youth to be stood and clapped along, whatever their sadness was, for the moment, replaced by abject joy.

It was then I recalled something Cyndi Lauper, who wrote the music for "Kinky Boots," told me in an interview I had with her about the show in 2014: “An amazing show with a great heart will lift you up.” It put these two on the ceiling.

In all my years of theatergoing, these are the moments I live for: To see the power of live theater transform someone before my watery eyes. Not on the stage. In the hearts and minds of the audience.

Here’s something else Cyndi Lauper told me in that 2014 interview:

“Unfortunately we still have bias and we still have bullying. Maybe we have even more bullying today because people can be cruel behind a computer instead of having the courage to say something ugly to someone’s face. We still have hatred and that is sad because I would have thought that by now people would have evolved. Because we live in the digital age, the world has gotten smaller. You’d think that would have made us more open and accepting. If we all could just accept each other for who we are, the world would be a beautiful place. And you know what? That’s the message of Kinky Boots.”

“Kinky Boots” plays at the Arvada Center through April 24. 720-898-7200 or arvadacenter.org