On broadway: Jerry's girls in their glory: when the chorus line from La Cage shakes a leg, it's in size 12 pumps.

They like to think of themselves as "Jerry's Girls"--in honor of Jerry Herman, their composer; Jerry Zaks, their director; and Jerry Mitchell, their choreographer. But of course, they're boys. They're the Cagelles, the drag chorus line that provides much of the entertainment in the St. Tropez nightclub known as La Cage aux Folles--and in the 1983 musical that shares its name and is now back on Broadway at the Marquis Theatre.

A few weeks before the show began previews, wearing sneakers and jeans and, in some cases several days' worth of stubble, they weren't looking very girlish. But as the show goes to great lengths to point out, appearances can be deceiving. Within a few weeks, these guys were clearly going to be knockouts. All shows present the ensemble with obstacles to be overcome, but this one requires special adjustments.

"Wearing high heels eight hours a day for five weeks has been really interesting," said T. Oliver Reid, who plays "Chantal," during a rehearsal break. "The first couple of weeks, it was all about finding your balance. Then, it became about your lower back. And then, you began to understand what women go through."

He's had to work at dancing in heels, but crossdressing is not a complete novelty to Reid, since he once played a transvestite in an episode of Sex and the City. But for Andy Pellick, "Angelique," the shoes, the padding, the gowns and the makeup are all novelties, he said. And rehearsing in three-inch heels has been both a challenge and a help. "It puts you there," he said. "It makes it easier to see yourself as who you're supposed to be." And, of course, it tells on his lower back too, though he hasn't changed his regimen to accommodate the shift in his posture.

Looking even younger than his 25 years, the sweet-faced Pellick, who started dancing as a kid in Pittsburgh, will clearly be a pretty. Cagelle. But he scoffed at the suggestion that perhaps the company was hired more on looks than dance. "We're dancing full out," he said. "We're men dancing in heels; it's very aggressive. We're getting to kick, leap, jump, and turn. We're not just prancing around like Las Vegas showgirls." (He knows whereof he speaks--he spent four years dancing in Vegas shows before coming to Broadway.)

Reid concurred, and described the multi-part audition process he went through before getting his job as a Cagelle. The first was a standard dance audition, in dance sneakers. Then he was asked to audition in shorts, so his legs could be assessed. That was followed by a wig and make-up tryout and then an audition in heels.

Oh, those heels. Reid, 34, who trained in North Carolina, had a special concern about wearing them. After dancing in long-running shows like Chicago, Kiss Me Kate and Thoroughly Modern Millie, he had to have part of his left ankle bone removed. But the ankle behaved. Whenever Reid goes into a show, it acts up until it settles into the new choreography. This time was the same, he said, and the ankle didn't seem particularly affected by the high heels. The worst part, Reid found, was going back and forth between his regular footwear and his show shoes. "The whole balance thing was changing, and I was stumbling and falling in my sneakers. And you don't want to be losing your balance on a subway platform!"

Pellick was more worried about losing his balance in a combination. "You're always thinking, 'How hard can I hit the choreography without turning an ankle or looking clumsy'?" he said.

The idea, Reid said, was not to come across as exaggerated, campy drag queens, but as classy, artistic female impersonators. And Reid and Pellick both spoke of the mysterious delight they felt in rehearsal when, looking in the mirror, they saw someone quite new looking back. That, too, is part of the show's theme.

With its Harvey Fierstein book about longtime lovers Georges and Albin (based on Jean Poiret's French play and movie); its showstopping gay anthem, "I Am What I Am"; and its arrival during the dark, early days of the AIDS crisis, La Cage aux Folles gained a special place in Broadway history. It wasn't the first Broadway musical with overtly homosexual content (that distinction probably belongs to The Rocky Horror Show). But it felt like a breakthrough nonetheless. And it had another distinction as well: La Cage aux Folles was the first Broadway musical to raise its top price to $47.50. Maybe it was the cost of all those size-12 pumps.

Sylviane Gold has written about theater for Newsday and The New York Times.