Brendon Urie To Hit Broadway In ‘Kinky Boots’ As A Factory Honcho

Brendon Urie is known for being the singer of Panic! At The Disco. Now, he’ll be hitting Broadway for the production of Kinky Boots. He’ll be playing a factory honcho Charlie Price. This role will allow him to see if musical theater is something he’d like to continue pursuing in the future. Brendon Urie teased the news yesterday with this photo:

Brendon Urie is definitely big on the theatrics, which has been prominent in a lot of what Panic! At The Disco does. “I Write Sins Not Tragedies” was a huge song for the band. It went four times platinum in the United States, and it hit No. 2 on the Billboard Mainstream Top 40 charts. You can see the theatrics in the video for the song.

Those theatrics followed the band from album to album in various ways and made it into their live performances, too. There’s no doubt that Brendon Urie is a showman, and he’ll likely be a great fit on Broadway. However, according to USA Today, he has some big shoes to fill.

“The Tony Award-winning Kinky Boots, which recently celebrated its fourth anniversary on Broadway, is based on a 2005 British film about a staid British shoe factory on the brink of ruin that retrofits itself into a maker of footwear for drag queens. It has songs by Cyndi Lauper, a story by Harvey Fierstein and some fierce-looking drag queens in 6-inch heels. Urie will play the role originated by Stark Sands, who earned a Tony nomination in it.”

Kinky Boots revolves around Charlie as a factory owner. He’s making an attempt to save his family business when Lola, an entertainer, comes along with an idea for him. This leads to the start of a blossoming partnership that involves making stilettos, and so give us the name of the production.

As someone who has listened to Panic! At The Disco for a good chunk of their career, it will be interesting to see Brendon Urie take this new step in his career. It doesn’t come as a huge surprise, and with music from Cyndi Lauper being involved, it feels like it will be a great match for him. He’s not necessarily jumping into something like Hamilton, but Kinky Boots is no slouch on Broadway.

Kinky Boots is enjoying it’s fifth year on Broadway and has made its way to Canada, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Scandinavia. It’s even slated to premiere in Germany later this year. Back when the show first opened in 2012, it was met with a warm reception. Here’s what Chris Jones said about it over at the Chicago Tribune.

“A warm, likable, brassy, sentimental, big-hearted and modestly scaled Broadway musical, ‘Kinky Boots’ updates the issues of ‘La Cage Aux Folles,’ touts acceptance and tolerance, stands behind a fresh-and-zesty Cyndi Lauper score, rolls out some mighty fine drag queens (with none of Arthur Laurents’ infamous female interlopers) and adds a dose of ‘Billy Elliot’-esque, Brit-style, emotional-industrial grit, only without the off-putting profanity and the raw politics.”

It remains to be seen how well Brendon Urie will perform and how much he’ll enjoy it, but he definitely seems to be excited it for it. For Panic! At The Disco fans, there’s probably no need to worry. Plenty of artists take on Broadway and still continue their non-musical theater careers. The band did release Death of a Bachelor just last year, so it’s unlikely they would have been releasing anything around Urie’s run on Kinky Boots anyway.

[Featured Image by Kevin Winter/Getty Images]