When Neko Daniels emerged from a side exit at Denver School of the Arts, he was greeted by a rowdy cheer normally reserved for a star quarterback. Neko was a different kind of star on this October night, having just played Lola in the public arts-magnet school’s remarkable staging of the musical “Kinky Boots.”

But when he saw his mother among the many gathered to congratulate various students for their triumphant work, he began to panic. Neko had asked his mom not to tell him which night his family would be in attendance. It was too much pressure. Here he was, taking on his first leading role as an actor, and he was playing an empowered Black drag queen in perhaps Broadway’s greatest musical testament to tolerance, understanding and community. The 16-year-old junior didn’t know it when he auditioned, but he soon realized, “This is my story.”

Neko had not yet told his dad he is gay. Or what “Kinky Boots” is about. Or the character he would be playing.

His father is a pastor who got into a bad accident when Neko was 4. “He literally died for a short time, but he came back. And at that moment, he devoted his life to Christianity,” Neko said. His parents are the kind of Christians who don’t push anyone away, Neko added, but still: “They don’t support all lifestyles.”

I have often said the most powerful moments in live theater sometimes happen away from the stage. In the audience. In the lobby. On the car ride home. This one happened on the way to the parking lot.

And it could have gone so very badly.

“I was scared to see his face,” Neko said. But when the two finally locked eyes, Neko saw that his father was holding his phone, recording every second of the adulation his son was receiving. Tears were running down his cheeks. Neko fell into his arms and they remained conjoined for a long time. No one watching along would dare interrupt it.

“It felt so right,” Neko said. “I felt so comforted. I had accomplished one of the hardest challenges in my life. That performance opened up an opportunity for us to talk – and not just about sexuality. About all sorts of things.”

I asked Neko what his dad whispered into his ear during their long embrace.

“The absolute most I could have expected was, ‘Good job,’” Neko said. Instead, his father gushed. “He kept telling me, ‘I am so proud of you. That was amazing. You are a star.’”

The mantra of the musical is, “You change the world when you change your mind.” Neko’s father certainly changed his son’s world for the better. In this unlikely moment that was a lifetime in the making, father and son “broke down the barrier of uncomfortability,” as Neko put it.

“Thanks to this experience with ‘Kinky Boots,’ it is definitely easier for us to talk about things now, without feeling ashamed or embarrassed.”

“Kinky Boots,” with songs by Cyndi Lauper, is based on the true story of a strait-laced young Brit who reluctantly inherits his father’s dying shoe factory – one that is saved only after he forms an unlikely partnership with the tough drag queen Lola.

As a former high-school drama teacher, I believe live theater can profoundly change teenage lives when the material you give them to play already lives deep within their DNA. Shawn Hann, Denver School of the Arts’ “Kinky Boots” director, intentionally cast some students in roles that did not match their expressed identities, so that they might walk in another person’s boots, so to speak. In Neko’s case, it was to help him feel more comfortable in his own.

Throughout the story, Lola keeps trying to connect with her own disapproving father, as expressed in a gut-wrenching ballad with lyrics like, “I’m not my father’s son. I’m not the image of what he dreamed of.” In the play, Lola never gets that happy ending with her father. But, thanks to Lola, Neko did.

Neko didn’t need to tell us this story. But he wanted to, he said, because he’s quickly moved from fear to fearlessness.

“When I was growing up, I didn’t have a story like this to model after,” he said. “Now I feel like Lola was a role that I was so literally close to, it became part of me. So when I think of other young people who might be in the same position, I want to tell them my story. My goal is this: Anybody I can help, I want to help.”

I told Annaleigh Ashford all of this. The Wheat Ridge native, currently starring in “Sweeney Todd” on Broadway, was nominated for a Tony Award for her work in “Kinky Boots.”

“That’s magical,” she said. “That’s why we do theater.”

Note: The True West Awards, now in their 23rd year, began as the Denver Post Ovation Awards in 2001. Denver Gazette Senior Arts Journalist John Moore celebrates the Colorado theater community by revisiting 30 good stories from the past year without categories or nominations.