Billy Elliot...is closing. CLOSING. WAAAAH!

As promised in the Newsies post, this is my rant about Billy Elliot closing.

It was embarassing because I was at a Starbucks when I first read the news on my phone, and I almost broke down right there in middle of my Chai latte.  Why, why, WHY?  I know it's about money...but this is one of the best shows on Broadway.  In my opinion, this show is the perfect formula for a Broadway musical.  The songs are amazing, the dancing is incredible, the script is well written.  It's hilarious and sad and full of heart and hope. (I sound like a commercial.  No one's paying me to say this, I swear!)  It's heavy on ballet and tap, but there are also elements of modern and jazz.  And the majority of the dancing is performed by children who range from about five to thirteen years old.

I've seen the show several times but my favorite Billy (by far) was Trent Kowalik.  He's from Long Island, but he nailed that British dialect.  He performed in the West End Billy Elliot first, and then was one of the three original Billys when it opened on Broadway in 2008.  He and the other two Billys (David Alvarez and Kiril Kulish) all won the Tony Award for best actor in a musical in 2009.  Trent was chosen to perform the "angry dance" at the 2009 Tony Awards, and it isn't hard to see why.  I don't know how such a young kid managed to channel so much emotion into a tap dance.  Do yourself a favor and watch this if you haven't already seen it...

Sadly, he's too old to be Billy now. His last performance was on March 7, 2010.  Thank heavens for YouTube!

Billy Elliot is playing at the Imperial Theatre through January 8, 2012.  If you're here and you haven't seen it, you really should go.  The national tour is still going on too, so if you don't get to see it on Broadway, all is not lost.

What's that?  You want one more Billy Elliot video?  Okay, okay, I'll help you out :)



This is a collection of various clips of the show.  It was filmed live during one of Trent's Billy performances.  It's a little hard to grasp the greatness when you're watching random clips out of context of the story, but it's still good stuff.  (There's an eensy bit of language in one of the clips, so maybe don't watch if you're easily offended)  This video is a little long, so if you don't want to watch the whole thing, you should skip to 5:20 for "Electricity."