Kinky Boots Struts into Musical Makeover???

Kinky Boots – in which Chiwetel Ejiofor starred as a drag queen who helps an ailing shoe company design a new line of sturdy fetish footwear – is set to become the latest Brit flick to make the screen-to-stage crossover. Broadway producers Daryl Roth and Hal Luftig have acquired the stage rights for the 2006 film and intend to make it into a musical.

No composer or lyricist has yet been linked to the adaptation, which will require an entire original score to build on the film, which was not a musical and contained only a few cabaret numbers. However, director/choreographer Jerry Mitchell has been in talks to lead the creative team.

Mitchell choreographed the musical version of another Brit flick, The Full Monty, in which the story of strip-dancing steelworkers was relocated from Sheffield to Buffalo. It’s likely that Kinky Boots would also be given a new American setting. Mitchell won Whatsonstage.com Awards for his choreography on The Full Monty and Hairspray. He acted as both choreographer and director on his latest Broadway screen-to-stager, Legally Blonde, which is expected to transfer to the West End in 2009 (See The Goss, 13 Jun 2008).