TORONTO – The wisecracks start from the moment Cyndi Lauper and Harvey Fierstein sit down for an interview.

“Ask us important (questions). This is the only time you’re ever going to get to interview us in your LIFE. What do you really want to know?” says Fierstein.

“Is that true? Ever?” says Lauper.

“Well, I don’t know, things could happen to us. Planes go down, careers go down,” chuckles Fierstein.

The two are in Toronto to discuss Sunday’s opening of their six-time Tony Award-winning musical “Kinky Boots” at Mirvish Productions’ Royal Alexandra Theatre.

Lauper won a Tony for doing the music and lyrics for the show, about a shoe factory heir who turns around the slumping fortunes of the business — thanks to cabaret queen Lola. Fierstein did the book that’s based on the 2005 film and Jerry Mitchell did the direction and choreography.

The Canadian Press recently sat down with Fierstein and Lauper at the theatre:

CP: Obviously you have a great rapport and work well together. How did you first meet and when?

Fierstein: We met years ago doing charity work, because we both do a lot of charity work; (amfAR) was honouring me in some way.

Lauper: And you wanted me to come sing ‘True Colors.’

Fierstein: Yeah, and I made a speech that night, too.

Lauper: And it was very inspirational for me, because after your speech and you said, ‘Happy people don’t self-destruct.’ I never forgot that.

Fierstein, laughing: Too bad I didn’t take my own advice.

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CP: (Cyndi), you come from Queens, and (Harvey), you come from Brooklyn — was there a similar sensibility?

Fierstein: We hit about the same time. I arrived on Broadway in ’81.

Lauper: Yeah, but I was still in (the band) Blue Angel. Nobody wanted to hear from me.

Fierstein: What year was (the album) ‘She’s So Unusual?’

Lauper: ’83

Fierstein: But it was about the same time and I always felt this affinity for her…. Her first album cover was shot outside the World in Wax on Coney Island, the wax museum, and that year I wrote a play called ‘Spookhouse’ that took place there. So we were always orbiting.

Lauper: How come you never contacted me?

(the two erupt in cackles)

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CP: Has there ever been a Lola for either of you in your lives? Somebody who came into your life and showed you things from a different perspective?

Fierstein: My dog is named Lola, named after this character. I got her when I was starting to write this.

Lauper: There’s been a lot of Lolas in my life.

Fierstein: Me too. She’s a Lola.

Lauper: Who?

Fierstein: You’re a Lola…. Lola is this fabulous creature … and looks all powerful and all that stuff, and then when you really get to know Lola you realize that she’s actually full of fear and not really sure of herself, like Lola in the show.

And when Charlie asks Lola to be a designer and then Lola bites the bullet and goes ahead and does what’s frightening and becomes herself — that’s what (Cyndi) does. You take on the challenge. You go ahead and do the difficult.

Lauper: I do take on the challenge.

Fierstein: She takes on the difficult, ’cause otherwise she wouldn’t have that colour hair. It’s difficult.

Lauper, touching her pink-blond locks: It was really supposed to be another colour and it just turned this way.

Fierstein: What colour was it supposed to be?

Lauper: Well I don’t know, I was looking for some kind of blond.

Fierstein: It’s sort of blond, in a kind of troll (way).

Lauper, laughing: It’s like candy.

Fierstein: It’s like Coney Island, candy apple cotton candy.

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CP: But ultimately this is a family story, a father-son story.

Lauper: There’s all kinds of families in our lives and what I found fascinating and exhilarating about this story was, one: it’s a true story; two: people, real people, evolve.

And the fact that it is true that when you change your mind about someone, you change your world, you change and everything around you changes. That stuff permeates in the world and that’s how you create change — not by telling other people they have to change.

Fierstein: Right now we’re watching amazing things going on in (South) Carolina after that shooting, where I would expect real anger to be and instead you hear voices of healing, saying, ‘I will not live with anger, I will not live my life that way, I will not throw away an hour on that person,’ and that’s an amazing change. The world changes because of that attitude.

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CP: Will you work together again?

Lauper: Never! (laughs)

Fierstein: I have a contract that she’ll have to sign.

Lauper breaks out in laughter

Fierstein: Yes, we’ll work together again.

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Answers have been edited and condensed.