Miss Jaye knows the power of theater. As a teenager in Ohio, it changed her life to see actor and singer Billy Porter play Lola, an indefatigable drag performer who works to save a struggling shoe factory, in the Tony-winning musical “Kinky Boots.” “I think Billy Porter really paved the way for so many Black queer artists to just be seen in the theater world,” she says.
The trans artist and drag performer is ready to put her own spin on Lola at the Mountain Play’s production of “Kinky Boots,” which opens at 2 p.m. Sunday at Mount Tamalpais State Park’s Cushing Memorial Amphitheatre.
It continues at 2 p.m. June 8, 9 and 16.
For tickets and more information, go to mountainplay.org . For the 24-year-old, this will be the second time she’s played Lola and her seventh production overall of “Kinky Boots,” a run that has taken her around the country.
“The fact that this company has allowed a young Black trans person to come into this space and tell this story to a massive audience is really special to me,” she says. Miss Jaye, who has a bachelor of fine arts in musical theatre from Kent State University, has also been in Renaissance Theatre’s “A Chorus Line,” among other productions. Q How are you capturing Lola? A Getting to study and create my own variation of what I see Lola as and tell the story in my way has been really special for me.
And there’s a moment in the show, “Not My Father’s Son,” when she comes out for the first time in this s.
