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Born to Boogie
By Adam Hetrick
04 Aug 2008
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Broadway's Billys: Kiril Kulish, David Alvarez and Trent Kowalik.
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| photo by Peter Lueders/ Paul Kolnik Studios | Billy Elliot, the smash-hit London musical based on the uplifting 2000 film of the same name, is currently preparing to electrify Broadway audiences this fall at the Imperial Theatre.
Now in its fourth year in the U.K., Billy Elliot-The Musical has grossed roughly $175 million between its London and Australian productions and has been seen by 2.3 million people.
With a score by Elton John and the creative team from the film — including screenwriter and lyricist Lee Hall, director Stephen Daldry, choreographer Peter Darling and producer Eric Fellner — Billy Elliot–The Musical will greet American audiences at the Imperial Theatre Oct. 1 with an official opening scheduled for Nov. 13.
In the late 1990's playwright and screenwriter Hall sent a script to Working Title Films president Fellner. The script, about a young boy in a depressed northern England mining town who longs to dance, was not an immediate seller. "We thought, 'Well, there's no reason to make this into a film whatsoever, so why bother reading it,'" Fellner said at the recent Billy Elliot press event.
Fellner and his partner, however, did read the script and despite their trepidation that "it had no obvious commercial life whatsoever," Working Title Films opted to produce the compelling film, says Fellner.
Nominated for three Oscars, the 2000 "Billy Elliot" film garnered a host of awards and many fans across the world. Among them was Elton John, who was so moved by the film during its Cannes Film Festival premiere that he approached director Daldry and the film's creative team about adapting the property into a musical.
It took two years for Daldry, Fellner and Hall to seriously consider Billy Elliot as a musical. Hall, who, prior to Billy Elliot, had never penned lyrics describes his initial meeting with Elton John: "When I met him, I thought he would say, 'Oh yes, we'll do the musical, but I'll get Bernie Taupin.' But he said, 'No, you must do it.'"
Hall admits to being "terrified," but John advised him to start from the beginning of the script and assured him that it would flow naturally, which it did. "I guess because I knew the characters so well, because I knew the world of the story," the lyrics came naturally, Hall says. "A lot of the songs came from speeches in the movie, and we just then slightly altered and filled [them] out to become lyrics."
He adds, "The great thing about musicals is that you can say things that you couldn't possibly say in a film or in a play because the music allows you a bigger emotional range. It was fantastic to be able to fill out all those things that in a movie you're always cutting back, and here you could really go to town on."
Inspired by his own upbringing on England's northern coast, the musical incarnation of Billy Elliot has brought many parts of Hall's life full circle. "When I grew up at that time," Hall recalls, "I was kind of dancing in my bedroom to the Elton John songs of the day and had all his albums. . . . [And, now I'm at] the end of the piano, watching Elton set music to my lyrics. Because it was about my childhood, loving Elton John and music and that being a way out for me, the whole thing is very sort of strange and circular."
Many critics have said Billy Elliot features Elton John's best stage score. Hall acknowledges that "at the heart of the musical is, of course, Elton John's music. What he managed to do was to take the popular idioms of the place where I grew up and create songs using these different forms from the community."
Hall and his collaborators have been sensitive to ensure that characters of Billy Elliot, with their Geordie accent and North England vernacular, aren't foreigners to Broadway audiences. Although the creative team has been refining moments that may not be clear dramatically or culturally, Hall says, "It was very important to us to keep the integrity of its setting and what it's about. You know, a Broadway audience is a really sophisticated audience, probably the most sophisticated in the world . . . Most of our changes are nothing to do with the cultural differences but really trying to dig deep and . . . have a show that really works here."
The Billy Elliot creative team also notes that the musical has continued to evolve since its 2005 London bow and its recent Australian premiere in late 2007. "It's always changing and always growing, and we're always discovering new ways of doing things, new ways of sort of clinching moments," Hall explains.
The Broadway company, featuring a trio of Billys (David Alvarez, Trent Kowalik and Kiril Kulish) as well as Carole Shelley (Grandma), Gregory Jbara (Dad), Santino Fontana (Tony) and original London cast member Haydn Gwynne (Mrs. Wilkinson), has also provided Lee and his collaborators an opportunity to take a fresh look at their characters.
"There are loads of opportunities to write for the specific actors, and just hearing the last two weeks of rehearsal and them tackling the parts, I can see opportunities to make things tailored to them. . . . That's what's great about the way we work — it's quite an organic process really. And rehearsing with a lot of people who don't share the background, you know, the Northeast of England and what everything means, really forces you to ask questions about anything that isn't clear," Hall concludes.
Scenic designer Ian MacNeil also relishes the opportunity to revisit the work: "I love going back to shows that I care about because you get another crack at it," he says. "And, designing a new musical is really hard because it's being written as you do it, but the deadlines for the delivering of the design for the scenery never match the deadlines for the writing, and obviously, it's a thing in flux."
MacNeil had the task of creating a cohesive world where all of the small scenes from the film could be translated to the stage. "We were anxious not to trundle scenery around a lot. There are short scenes, long scenes, and it's important to stay inside Billy's head and to stay with Billy all of the time," he says. "Things just kind of move discretely around him, and I think the audience doesn't notice, and I think that's quite an achievement — to go from one large location to another and really have the audience not be thinking about that but be thinking about the experience Billy's just had and the experience he's going into."
Ready for new experiences are Billy Elliot's three young stars, who have recently returned from London to train for their Broadway debuts. "It was wonderful. I loved London. It's very different from New York. It's a wonderful city, and I loved the rehearsals," said David Alvarez.
Long Island native Trent Kowalik, who was performing the title role in Billy Elliot in London, said, "I think the biggest difference [between London and Broadway] is the actors and actresses [are] different people . . . And, [on Broadway], I have to make my accent a little bit more clear so that the people in America can understand it."
When asked if he had a certain moment he loved best in the musical, Kiril Kulish offered, "I think I love everything about it because everything is so different. There's joy, happiness and there's, you know, sad emotion. I think all of it's great — to combine everything together. I that's what makes the show the most unique." Continued...
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