The now rich canon of the American musical attests to a variety of works, each of which has uniquely adumbrated, in a rather lighthearted manner, the social and political history of the country. Evolving parallel to traditional drama, the genre of musical has established its own conventions and styles, yet the themes and narratives taken on by American librettists do not significantly deviate from those usually addressed by playwrights. The representation of the American family, for instance, has been frequently undertaken by dramatists. Other equally explored topics include coming-of-age narratives as well as success stories that often touch upon American exceptionalism. What braids those topics together is the devotion to matters of identity and representation that have multifariously shaped American culture and ideology. For that matter, narratives built around characters who are misfits, outcasts, and from vulnerable social groups related to class, race, or gender have progressively populated musical texts, thus continuously pluralizing the so-called American musical canon in terms of representation and visibility.

Broadway, as a matter of fact, has become a platform for more flexible and, at times, unconventional expressions of identity, incorporating narratives, protagonists, and even musical genres that critically resist normative conceptions of culture and selfhood. More specifically, gender and sexuality have been two key categories on which American librettists and dramaturgs have more often than not focused. With the advent of the feminist and queer movements especially in the middle to late twentieth century, artists brought even more attention to the aforementioned matters of representation and visibility. This politics impacts Broadway too as non-normative manifestations of gender and sexuality steadily and often openly make their way into the musical stage. Inasmuch as the history of the genre abounds in stories that reiterate the boy-meets-girl convention, in the heart of which a rigid heteronormative paradigm remains ingrained, there have been narratives that celebrate queer identities and cultures respectively. From Galt MacDermot and Gerome Ragni's Hair (1967) to Bill Solly and Donald Ward's Boy Meets Boy (1975), from James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante's A Chorus Line (1975) to Jonathan Larson's Rent (1996), musical theater has been home to queer and non-binary perspectives of an American reality. In the context of the twenty-first century, musical texts that embrace queer characters and romances blend well into the now diverse panorama of narratives. It can be argued that staged productions with narratives around queer sexuality and characters who surf the spectrum of gender are almost sine qua non in what has come to define the great American musical.

Musicals dealing with topics of and around queerness and/or homosexuality – henceforth referred to as gay musicals – showcase their own distinctive traits, such as queer-ification or camp-ification, as this article will demonstrate. These musical texts have, therefore, generated their own queer versions of musical tropes and conventions. For instance, introducing the concept of a queer family or the iconic figure of the drag queen, as well as reclaiming the praxis of camp as a critical tool, all belong to the politics and poetics employed by the gay musical. To speak of conventions here presupposes that a certain canon or, better, lineage – to avoid the pitfall of canon – of queer texts is in the making; not only do the traits of the gay musical exhibit consistency and frequency but also they remain anchored in queer praxes. The primary objective of this article is to trace these dramaturgic conventions and devices utilized within the gay musical by looking into two case subjects, namely Falsettos (1992), written by William Finn and James Lapine, and Kinky Boots (2012), written by Harvey Fierstein and Cyndi Lauper.

Queer audiences and, more specifically, gay male audiences have had a long-lasting affair with musical theater (Miller 65-68; Clum 22-28; Brett and Wood, 341-90). In fact, the Broadway musical is classified by gay cultural theorists among those artistic fields, such as the opera or the diva spectacle, which are primarily endorsed, both emotionally and financially, by queer audiences (Bronski 134-143; Harris 1-8; Halperin 90-108). Long before queer characters and plotlines started populating musical texts and began to carve new spaces for non-heterosexual audiences, queer men indulged in the world of musical theater primarily as spectators, much like they did with classic Hollywood divas such as Mae West and Judy Garland. John Clum argues that gay men in the pre-Stonewall era exhibited a particular attraction to the genre, their knowledge of which was communed among them and would provide a safe ground for the formation of queer bonds (9-10). Some of the most prevalent stereotypes about gay men at the time emerged from this specific fondness, which inevitably associated queerness with the musical. As Brett indicates "to be musical" and "friend of Dorothy" – the latter deriving from the queer appeal Garland exerted as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz (1939) – were common euphemisms signifying one's homosexuality and, especially, effeminacy (11). The gaiety and extravagance of the Broadway musical was and is conflated with camp culture not only due to the hyperbolic glamour and the frivolous role-play but also because characters and narratives, songs and texts offered double entendres and implicit messages that captured queer attention.¹ As contributors, gay men have equally invested in musical theater becoming part and parcel of a long history of productions; some noteworthy cases are Cole Porter, Ivor Novello, Lorenz Hart, Noël Coward, Arthur Laurents, Leonard Bernstein, and Stephen Sondheim (Brett and Wood 361). Always wary of cultural stereotyping, one could also argue that the industry of musical theater was and still is an artistic hub of queer cross pollinations in which the professional fields that queer individuals have often excelled at – such as writing, styling, and performing – converge.  

Turning to the topics and conventions of the gay musical, one notices how the lived queer experience resides center stage. Being gay in America (or elsewhere) remains among the key subject matters in texts that illustrate the said experience by critically contextualizing it within cultural and temporal frameworks. In the panorama of musical texts such as Rent and Terrence McNally's stage adaptation of Manuel Puig's Kiss of the Spider Woman (1990), as well as the two musicals explored here, time and space in relation to homosexuality and queer culture are as important as the queer characters, which provides insight into time-specific events or culturally-bound phenomena. For instance, the social and individual concerns regarding the HIV/AIDS epidemic have been chronicled in musical texts such as Rent and AIDS! The Musical (1989), underlining the disease as a socio-cultural trauma that significantly impacted late twentieth-century queer communities. Another topic is gender expression as juxtaposed to cultural backgrounds and always in conflict with dominant heteronormative standards; consider the cases of Boy Meets Boy (1975) and Hedwig and the Angry Inch (1998). Finally, queer, camp lifestyles in performance, entertainment, and nightlife have been a vital component in stage productions, including those of Cabaret (1966), The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (2006), Taboo (2002), and La Cage aux Folles (1983), to name a few, therefore establishing a veritable backdrop for characters and plot to develop while simultaneously providing the staged queer experience with cultural and aesthetic validity.  

As gay musicals, Falsettos and Kinky Boots exist within the aforementioned panorama since each configures queerness as essentially linked with the social realities surrounding it. Falsettos came together out of two separate one-act productions, entitled March of the Falsettos (1981) and Falsettoland (1990), which now comprise the official two-act musical.² The plot centers on the interrelations of five main characters and two additional ones introduced in the second half of Falsettoland: Marvin; his ex-wife, Trina; their son, Jason; the family psychiatrist and later on Trina's husband, Mendel; Marvin's lover, Whizzer Brown; and the neighboring lesbian couple, Dr. Charlotte and Cordelia. Act I is set in 1979 New York and introduces the five main characters. The central character around whom the plot and the rest of the characters revolve, Marvin leads conflicting relationships with his Jewish family, his lover, and even the psychiatrist who shows intense interest in Trina. The latter, deeply affected by Marvin's homosexuality and his choice to divorce her for Whizzer, verges on a nervous breakdown as her notion of an ideal middle-class home collapses. Also affected by this downfall is Jason, a soon-to-be teenager who disapproves of his father's queer lifestyle and develops a questioning, if castigating, look over social conventions and relationships. Mendel is presented as an ambivalent character, torn between his profession/professionalism and his desire for his patient, Trina. Last but not least, the character of Whizzer is illustrated as passionate and competitive towards Marvin, but, simultaneously, critical and interested in his lover's life, slowly bonding with his family, particularly with young Jason. Act I culminates with Marvin hitting Trina, breaking up with Whizzer, and gradually improving his relationship with his son; at the same time, Trina and Mendel start their relationship, and Whizzer walks away. 

Set two years later in the early 1980s, which marks the beginning of the Reagan Era, Act II explores the characters' development and also introduces the lesbian couple. Falsettoland sets Jason's bar mitzvah as a point of reference around which the rest of the narratives are orchestrated. Evidently less turbulent are the relationships among characters whose felt individual differences seem to be overridden with understanding, commitment, and optimism. The notion of the family unit once broken is now restored through the heterosexual marriage of Mendel and Trina, but also through the queer couples of Dr. Charlotte and Cordelia as well as Marvin and Whizzer who resumed their relationship after seeing each other again at one of Jason's baseball matches. The characters will eventually come even closer, bound by the devastating news of Whizzer's illness. Having contracted the HIV virus, the latter gradually turns into a deeply affective character and is embraced by the rest of the group, now forming strong bonds. Act II culminates with the actual bar mitzvah taking place in Whizzer's hospital room, where all characters are present, and concludes with what appears to be a funeral scene. By writing Falsettoland ten years after March of the Falsettos but setting narrative time only two years apart, Finn and Lapine had the opportunity to observe social reality in retrospect, as opposed to Act I being contemporaneous with its time of writing. The attitudes and emotions during the era of the so-called gay plague and its ensuing propaganda in the 1980s, which witnessed significant backlash in the social and civil liberties attained by queer people of the preceding years, are all elements that can be traced in Finn and Lapine's work. 

Falsettos balances between jollity and seriousness. It navigates through critical social matters pervading pre-millennial America without eschewing the musical's generic gaiety. Miranda Lundskaer-Nielsen classifies Falsettos under the "musical drama" category, underlining it as "a quirky musical drama that combined simple, inventive staging with topical subject matter (homosexuality and the breakdown of traditional family unit), idiosyncratic characters, witty and subversive lyrics, and a book that made no attempt to pander to popular tastes" (79). For Lundskaer-Nielsen, "musical dramas," which emerged from the 1970s onwards, moved away from generic traditions popularized mainly through Rodgers and Hammerstein productions – firstly, due to the fact that contemporary writers were less affiliated with the ranks of choreographers and directors, and more with text-based approaches – and, secondly, because they were more interested in political works that raised questions rather than resolving them (8). Among Finn's influences when writing were Frank O'Hara, Philip Roth, Anton Chekhov, and Wendy Wasserstein (Lundskaer-Nielsen 80). Finn has also argued that, although the text is not autobiographical, it heavily relies on his perception of 1970s and 1980s New York gay culture as experienced by him and his social circle ("Show People"). At the same time, the work retains its jovial nature in a self-fulfilling purpose to entertain its audiences. Demonstrative of that is the opening number "Four Jews in a Room Bitching," a self-proclaimed "funny" act that presents the main characters and narrates the Jewish people's flight from Egypt in purely ironic lyrics. It is a testament to the camp aspects of the musical genre, which manages to observe histories and tragedies through tinted lens and rhythmical hyperbole – the word "bitch" is repeated so many times that it almost becomes a mantra. 

This specific number is also indicative of another important dichotomy that permeates the whole work, namely the heterosexual/homosexual binary, which is primarily addressed via the concept of masculinity. The work explores imposed gendered ambiguities and social standards attached to queerness, heterosexuality, and maleness through the four male protagonists. In "Four Men in a Room Bitching," the men – Marvin, Whizzer, Mendel, and Jason – are dressed in traditional Jewish attire, each carrying a flashlight and wearing sunglasses – all but Whizzer who is holding a toy bed (Finn and Lapine 9). From the very first moment, the cultural ideal of masculinity, traditionally associated with virility, aggressiveness, and maturity, as well as the seriousness and the conservative character of religion are challenged. All four characters appear pendulous over masculine identification, each for idiosyncratic reasons, while, simultaneously, queerness is foregrounded as the counter-masculine signifier. The musical showcases men who have failed to fulfill masculine standards and connects this failure with the implosion of the family unit. Admitting to being neurotic, the men epitomize the impossibility to fully embody masculinity, announcing: "In case of smoke, please call our mothers and say their sons are all on fire" (Finn and Lapine 12). The youngest member of the group, Jason, who has yet to come of age and symbolically stands for the future generation, is presented as confused and rather disappointed with the idea of family, principally because his masculine role model has come out to him as homosexual: "Daddy's kissing – boys" (Finn and Lapine 21). Placing the blame on his father's queerness, Jason mirrors the problematic outcome of the imploded family; in his brief solo "My Father's a Homo," little Jason expresses his concern over the contagiousness of queerness – "What about chromosomes? Do they carry? Will they carry?" Jason thinks he ""[does]n't lead a normal life" since his "mother's no wife / and [his] father's no man" (Finn and Lapine 37). Through its sarcastic lyrics, the work manages to upset the notion of masculinity by taking jabs at its impossible standards and by bringing homosexuality center stage.  

Performance-wise, the playful character of the musical allows for dramatic fluidities conducive to a bodily dismantling of masculinity. As the very title of the work suggests, the technique of performing in falsetto becomes a critical tool when it comes to the male protagonists. By shifting to higher vocal registers, the men dissociate themselves with typical masculine vocality. To sing in falsetto allows them to transgress their masculine pitch by means of camp. The scene that best explicates this camp effect is "March of the Falsettos" for which directorial guidelines read that "EVERYONE marches and EVERYONE sings in falsetto. Every so often EVERYONE jumps together, and when THEY do their voices get even higher. THEY'RE very serious and very foolish and very manly" (Finn and Lapine 65).³ Wearing gauze versions of their costumes with neon details that are meant to come across as both "silly" and "eerie," the four men perform "March of the Falsettos" as a parody of masculinity: "Four men swaying / In phosphorescence / Keep replaying / Their adolescence" (Finn and Lapine 65). They alternate between vocal registers to amplify the queer effect and signify their confusion and immaturity. Traditionally, high-pitched voices have been associated with femininity and female sopranos. In the history of Italian opera, for instance, men performing in high registers, deemed as castrati, were completely dissociated with masculine standards since they were emasculated prior to reaching adulthood.⁴ Falsettos performs a similar, albeit metaphorical, castration on their male characters in order to effectively nullify stereotypes alluding to machismo. 

For Finn and Lapine, as well as for every writer whose queer body of work addresses male homosexuality and gay identity, heteronormative masculinity and standardized conceptions of manhood are social falsities and sources of anxiety that need to be critically challenged. Likewise, Harvey Fierstein's oeuvre has time and again undertaken the task to approach gay male identity in an effort to contest the cultural expectation men are instructed to fulfill. In works such as La Cage aux Folles or The Torch Song Trilogy (1982), Fierstein dives into gay culture to craft character-personae that are in constant dialogue and even battle with their surrounding heteronormative reality. Kinky Boots, based on the homonymous 2005 film and with music and lyrics penned by Cyndi Lauper, similarly presents a central character-persona who assumes the role of the queer advocate dismantling gendered stereotypes, always in a jolly manner. The musical illustrates the story of a young man, Charlie Price, who has inherited his father's shoe factory, Price & Son, in Northampton and is struggling to make more marketable and modern shoes as well as carry on the family legacy. Being in London, he meets a drag queen, named Lola, by accident and, having briefly talked about men in high heels, he asks from Lola to help him design "kinky boots" for the niche market of cross-dressing men. Both Lola, also known as Simon whose father trained him to be a boxer and disowned him because of his queerness, and Charlie, a heterosexual man who has been obliged to leave his London life for his father's Northampton factory, soon realize they have been long burdened by paternal expectations. Their formed partnership ahead of a Milan fashion show brings closer two seemingly opposite worlds:  gay and straight. 

Kinky Boots emphasizes catchy tunes, choreographed routines, and spectacular costumes. It also abides by the conventions of the typical Broadway musical in terms of structure, linearity, and narrative closure/resolution. In addition, the musical is invigorated with camp tones, expressed mainly through the character of Lola, and favors a dramatic naiveté that significantly distances it from the category of musical drama exemplified by Falsettos. As in other works within Fierstein's back catalog, the camp factor is key in approaching, staging, and understanding gay culture and characters, and, by extension, queerness itself. Of course, queerness cannot be monolithically understood through camp since the latter, with its histrionic attraction to unrealistic narratives, clings more to the theatrical and the extravagant. Yet, Fierstein's intent is not to present a realistic rendition of either gay culture or homosexuality, but rather a hyperbolic one that plays with rigid stereotypes and aims at inflating reality out of conventional proportions. Thus, the campy queen, who has time and again stood at the recipient end of anti-queer rhetoric and action, is now literally and symbolically placed center stage as a larger-than-life character that epitomizes queerness. Kinky Boots' Lola is a comically compassionate character, yet simultaneously sassy and assertive. Identity-wise, Lola is portrayed as a black gay drag queen, and, as a result, she is positioned at an intersectional point of race and sexuality. Her doubly oppressed identity attributes political edge to Lola's performance: though set in England, Lola's intersectionality serves as a critical reminder for American audiences with regard to the history and social status of black queer communities at home. Expected to fit in the masculinist world of boxing championships, Lola is burdened with the corporeal history of black excellence in the sports world. However, her queerness camps up the very social composure of black hypermasculinity. As a matter of fact, her performance and repertoire see her proudly assert her black queer self: for instance, in the number "Land of Lola" she states that she "got Ginger Rogers's savoir faire / With the moves of Fred Astaire / I'm Black Jesus, I'm Black Mary / But this Mary's legs are hairy" (Fierstein and Lauper 19). 

Establishing her character as unapologetically queer, Lola's camp praxis foregrounds femme-ness as a poetic and performative weapon against what is juxtaposed as rigidly macho. To flaunt one's queerness utilizes discursive and corporeal codes that directly underline one's identity and body as queer; flaunting, in fact, has been a potent act in asserting queer identities, such as butch and femme, within heteronormatively coded environments. More specifically, the camp subject with its highly stylized vocabulary and femme demeanor wishes to resist any identification with heterosexual masculinity by toying with gender codes. In heteronormative environments, this approach may come across as radical considering the anti-queer response that camp expression often provokes; it is not accidental that effeminacy within conservative milieus is usually met with ridicule, abjection, even violence. Therefore, flaunting as an unrestricted queer/camp expression is certainly a demanding, if risky, act when seen within strictly patriarchal structures. Kinky Boots' employing of flaunting through the character of Lola is rooted in camp culture wherein gay men have for years tapped into their femme qualities as a strategy of queer resistance as well as pride. It is through Lola that we can see how Kinky Boots employs flaunting as a device that springs from the social reality of queer people and can be seen as a unique tool found exclusively within the gay musical convention – consider here Rent's Angel and Priscilla's Felicia Jollygoodfellow. 

In the work, Lola's femme camp is foil to a complementary macho character, Don, a factory worker who embodies physical strength and crudeness. "What a Woman Wants" is a musical scene in which Lola and Don exchange arguments over how women feel and what they want. Lola appears in her signature red kinky boots and, at some point, produces a horsewhip out of her boot, wielding it for dramatic emphasis as she taunts Don into a fight. The sharp antithesis between the two characters leads to a climax in the follow-up fighting scene for which both have placed their bets: the defeated will have to perform a task dictated by the winner. Don's character is presented as over-confident in his masculinity, so a boxing match is set up as the appropriately manly site to resolve the conflict. At the same time, his unawareness of Lola's boxing past is somewhat ironic and establishes him as comically ignorant. "In this Corner" is the number that showcases the fighting scene, which is dramatized as an actual boxing match: Lola and Don have their respective supporting group while the fellow drag queens of Lola act as the masters of ceremony. In ensemble, Lola's chorus sings: "Hit him in his big mouth / Hit him in his insecurities," and Don's respective side counters with "Hit him in the lipstick / Hit him in his femininity" (Fierstein and Lauper 65-66). Being an ex-boxer, Lola is at ease when fighting, yet, realizing Don's losing the match in front of all his co-workers would be humiliating, she lets him claim the victory. When Don asks her later why she let him win, Lola argues that compared to her winning challenge, having Don "accept someone for who they are," her "losing a fight is a polka in the pansies" (Fierstein and Lauper 70). With camp humor, Lola effectively breaks the tension between them and offers the much-needed resolution. 

Kinky Boots deals with resolutions in a rather didactic way. Its usage of cliché narrative strands often comes in sympathetic and, at times, melodramatic tones. Being simultaneously fierce and vulnerable, the character of Lola offers formulaic life lessons and summarizes the moral of the musical: not to judge others by their appearance. Her character's objective is to entertain as well as instruct. Reviewing for the official opening of the musical (directed by John Mitchell) at Broadway's Al Hirschfeld Theatre, Ben Brantley underlined Kinky Boots' jovial, albeit preachy approach of the theme of self-acceptance and connected it with Lauper's "goofy image" and Fierstein's "sermonizing side" (Brantley). More importantly, Brantley effectively identified the image of the drag queen as "the spirit lifter" within Fienstein's oeuvre (also in La Cage and Torch Song Trilogy), a representation bordering on stereotypical depiction. Being the character that denotes queerness through camp expression, the drag queen has historically occupied a liminal space both in and out of gay culture; being a common target of gender-phobic violence has led to her becoming solidified as a symbol of queer resistance, witty response, and sexual assertiveness. Fierstein's Lola, a campy black queen crowned with the power to uplift other people's morals and teach valuable lifelessons, tilts to a rather objectified queer character, whose doubly marginal identity is sentimentalized and placed upon a pedestal. 

Despite its cliché message, or rather, the cliché dramatization of it, the musical has managed to impact popular culture and help raise social awareness. Extending beyond the stage, Kinky Boots has weighed in on America's contemporary politics dealing with gender and LGBTQ+ issues. In 2013, the featured performance of the cast for the annual Thanksgiving Parade organized by Macy's stirred controversy in relation to promoting drag and queerness. According to HuffPost's Hunter Stuart, "right wingers across America took to social networks to voice their outrage at NBC for broadcasting" the show. Conservative rhetoric deemed the content inappropriate and castigated its flamboyance for allegedly offending American families viewing it. In response, Fierstein took to the press arguing in favor of starting a public dialogue and underscored the fact that raising awareness requires effort ("Kinky Boots Walks"). Three years later, with the show still running on Broadway, creators Fierstein and Lauper once again addressed contemporary politics by taking a stand against the notorious "bathroom bill" controversy in North Carolina, according to which state legislature would restrict transgender people from free-choice public bathroom access. Fierstein and Lauper rewrote the lyrics to the musical's final number, "Just Be," by humorously changing it into "Just Pee," and posted an online video of the song performed by the cast in a public restroom. As a musical that derives its narrative causes from queer culture, Kinky Boots has remained steadfast to the politics of queer community by actively bringing attention to social issues regarding LGBTQ+ rights, diversity, and visibility. 

With that said, the character of what has here been defined as the gay musical is in concert with the ethos, politics, and poetics of the queer culture that has given birth to it. Both Falsettos and Kinky Boots are works indicative of socially aware projects that do not simply accommodate queerness as a thematic strand in narratives, but rather as their focal point. Exemplary of a contemporaneous musical drama, the former succeeds in renegotiating the structural core of the American family by inserting queerness at its very kernel while simultaneously focusing on the formative experience of the 1980s HIV/AIDS epidemic. On a lighter note, the latter addresses patriarchal evaluations of gender and assaults rigid masculinity by means of camp performance. The works contribute to the way musical theater perceives and dramatizes queerness and its surrounding culture. As gay musicals, both works ultimately demonstrate the need for queer writers and producers to push for visibility and the deconstruction of stereotypes as well as to create opportunities for dialogue, as Fierstein stressed, with those negating non-normative expression. 

NOTES

1.  According to Brett and Wood, "the actual thematics of musical theatre were as heterosexist as those of any other representational form of the pre-Stonewall era. Nevertheless, ways were found to introduce coded or not so-coded messages, like 'you're a queer one, Julie Jordan' (Carousel, 1945), for a knowing homosexual audience while staying within conventional narrative boundaries. These might include title (Novello's final work, Gay's the Word, 1950), lyrics such as Coward's 'Mad about the Boy' (from Words and Music, 1933), with its coded references to A.E. Housman and Greta Garbo, or Porter's 'Farming' (Bronski 113), characters and plot, such as the 'tomboy' Maria in The Sound of Music (Wolf 1996), and performers such as Mary Martin as a cross-dressed lesbian in the role of Peter Pan (Wolf 1997)" (361-2).  

2. March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland are preceded by another one-act piece, entitled In Trousers (1979), which mainly focuses on the character of Melvin and his coming to terms with his sexuality. Introducing more characters like Trina, the text underwent significant revisions in 1985. Nevertheless, the official production is mostly comprised of March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland and retains only the main characters originally introduced in the 1979 Off-Broadway installment of In Trousers.

3. "Everyone" refers to the four men without Trina.

4. As Dynes explains, "The castrati were male singers emasculated in boyhood to preserve the soprano or contralto range of their voices, who from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth century played roles in Italian opera" (202).

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"Kinky Boots Walks Tall in Macy's after Parade Controversy." Page Six, 30 November 2013, pagesix.com/2013/11/30/kinky-boots-walks-tall-in-macys-after-thanksgiving-parade-controversy/ 

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Stuart, Hunter. "'Kinky Boots' Performance at Macy's Day Parade Provokes Outrage." Huffpost, 29 November 2013 [updated 2 February 2016], huffpost.com/entry/kinky-boots-macys_n_4360035