A night with ‘Elvis’ helped Cyndi Lauper embrace Las Vegas

By John Katsilometes

Friday, Sept. 5, 2014 | 9 p.m.

Elvis changed Cyndi Lauper’s view of Las Vegas.

It wasn’t really Elvis, of course. It never is. But the man in the jumpsuit braying “Suspicious Minds” was actually Lauper’s cousin Johnny Edwards, who over the years has starred as an impressionist of many entertainment legends, including Elvis.

On this night in May 1997, Lauper was in Las Vegas as the opening act on the Tina Turner “Wildest Dreams” tour at MGM Grand Garden Arena.

Lauper was early in her pregnancy with her son, Declyn, feeling bored and “a little uncomfortable” the night before the concert. Somehow, the hotel’s wide-open lounge known as The Dome (which is now Centrifuge bar) beckoned.

“I didn’t like my surroundings, where I was, at all, because everything was air conditioned, air conditioned and really dry,” says Lauper, seated next to director and choreographer Jerry Mitchell at the Founders Room at the Smith Center for the Performing Arts as the musical “Kinky Boots” preps for its U.S. tour opening run at Reynolds Hall.

“I went downstairs to the bar, and my cousin Johnny, Johnny Edwards, was doing an Elvis show. So I sat at the bar, looking up at him — I couldn’t drink, but I was eating — and there was my cousin Johnny. My whole mind changed about this city immediately. I got to see through somebody’s eyes, who actually lives here, what it is like to work in Las Vegas.

“Before that, I just thought of Vegas as very surreal.”

Lauper spent some time this week in Las Vegas to promote “Kinky Boots.” She wrote all of the songs in the production and won a Tony Award for the show’s upbeat score. The musical is opening its U.S. tour in Las Vegas, with shows at the Smith Center running through Sept. 14 (added to the performance schedule is a 2 p.m. matinee performance Wednesday).

Unlike her collaborator Mitchell, who has a long history in the city dating to his days with “EFX Alive,” “Hairspray” and “Peepshow,” Lauper has just a handful of memories.

Oh, but they’re distinctive.

“I stayed at the pyramid, just after it opened. The Luxor? Is that it? I stayed there to see Barbra Streisand at the MGM Grand,” Lauper says, referring to Streisand’s New Year’s Eve show in 1993. “I was here for that, to see her, and it was a big thrill because I’m such a huge fan of hers, ever since I was little.”

Lauper is reminded about Streisand’s opening performance at the International in 1969, another landmark resort and memorable moment in the city’s history.

“That’s when she had the long hair and that great eyeliner,” Lauper says. “I was so close to her then, you don’t even know. Neither does she. I sang with her every single day, when I was 9. I used to imitate her, every single day.”

Then she stops, as if experiencing a Las Vegas epiphany.

“Wait! I was here once more! That’s right!” she says, her voice filling the room. “I did the ‘I Drove All Night’ video here. I ran barefoot down by the Frontier hotel with the neon signs behind me. I came for the neon lights.”

As if performing the soundtrack to Lauper’s story, Mitchell sings, “I drove all niiiight …”

Lauper says today she is focused primarily on two areas of her life: Her son, who is now 16 — or as she says, “16 1/2” — and the road tour of “Kinky Boots.” The musical has opened a new avenue for Lauper’s songwriting, as her work on the musical led to her becoming the first woman to ever win a Tony Award for writing music in a Broadway show.

She says she was able to conceive a cohesive soundtrack to the story, written by Harvey Fierstein, despite having very little exposure to live theater when she was growing up in Queens.

“We couldn’t afford it when I was little,” she says in her familiar, lilting voice. “I saw ‘Applause,’ and I saw ‘Hair,’ when I was older, but I think at the time I was possibly … I don’t know, under the influence (laughs). But I liked it because it spoke to me. It was kind of — I say, kind of — our kind of music.”

Lauper says she was thinking of Mitchell’s and Fierstein’s skills when she composed the score to “Kinky Boots,” which is based on the 2006 movie and opened in Chicago two years ago. The story follows the workers at a British boot factory that is turned into an operation making footwear for drag queens to avoid being shut down.

“It was a message of unity that I wanted to serve in a way that people would really want to hear,” Lauper says. “I really thought about how I was going to do that for them, for Jerry, for Harvey and for the audience.”

“I wanted to follow the spirit of the story, and for the rhythm to be really authentic so Jerry — who is a great choreographer — could have that authentic rhythm to create great dance scenes. It was a challenge for me to make that work, but when I was little, the shows in the Broadway community were making pop songs.”

At that, Mitchell cuts in with, “When you listen to the music in the show, ‘Sex Is In the Heel,’ ‘Everybody Say Yeah’ and the final number, ‘Raise You Up/Just Be,’ that’s the real thing. It’s very contemporary, it’s very right now, it’s very right here. Even the sound of it in the theater — it’s immediate.”

Lauper adds, "'Everybody Say Yeah,’ is very ‘church’ and kind of inspired by the East Harlem Choir. It feels like we’re going to church. We’re going to the church of shoes.”

Lauper says she is listening to quite a bit of electronic music lately, as her son is a big fan. “I’ll go on the Internet if a friend turns me on to somebody."

She says she loves The Hunter Girls “because they’re kind of rock ’n’ roll, young women playing rock music, and it’s kind of pop but with an edge. Really good and catchy.” She remains a big fan of Cher, too.

“I still love Cher’s music. She honestly has a few songs that I still start singing when I hear them. I was with her, on this past tour (including a show at MGM Grand in May), and she sang better on this tour than she ever has. I should know, I’ve been on three of these tours. I was just so taken with her professionalism, her work with the choreographer, the lights and the storytelling of her show. I looked at her and thought, ‘Wow, she is still amazing.’ ”

Lauper is not going to see “Kinky Boots” in its gala premiere Saturday night at Reynolds Hall. She needs to be with her son on his first day of school, saying, “I don’t want my son to be the only kid on the first day of school without his mother.”

But Lauper says there will be another time to visit Las Vegas for young Declyn, who has a long history in the city. There might even be another Elvis show in his future.

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWiththeDish.