St. Paul Reviews

[CJ-Rochester]

Thanks for the review of Zach's final show muck912, and thanks to all of the reviewers during the St. Paul run. It was nice to see the fans continue to be so well represented.

[ERinVA]

Yes, thanks for all the the reviews, everyone. Now we get a month-long wait until the show reconvenes in Indianapolis.

[jdmag44]

St Paul Sun Mat Kylend/Jake

Ok here I am at the 4th of 5 shows in a row - very tired - In my head I was thinking ahead to tonight's final for Zach.

"Thank you Kylend" you brought me back to life in the here and now. Foolish me, had I forgotten how fantastic this seasoned professional can be?
So comfortable on stage "he owns the role". He plays the role very well and he knows it. With searing confidence he leads the audience on the wonderful journey that is Billy Elliot. He is tall now almost as tall as Mrs W but it works to his advantage when he dances, adding such "elegance" to his Electricity, which combined with his jaw dropping mixture of handsprings and pirouettes left me so very happy to have seen him once again.

Joe

[jdmag44]

St Paul Zach,s final show

Muck912 hit the nail on the head! This show was A CELEBRATION OF ZACH. I too saw the "hugh" number of young people in the lobby as I entered. I spoke to a number of them who said they were members of a theater group and many from Zachs dance academy. They were all friends of Zach but none had ever seen him perform this role. I suspect they were amazed at what he could do.

I took my seat in the 4th row early,grateful that it was such a great one. I became aware of my rapid heartbeat and slight anxiety. I could not believe that I was at this special final performance of a young man who has so touched my heart over the past year. I more than enjoyed his unique and joyful interpretation of the role of Billy. It had a refreshing and different fragrance. He really captured Billy in that he was a boy who truly LOVED to dance and who danced so very ,very well. Or maybe it was that big smile.

As I settled in and began to look around, a very distinguished looking man with a big wide smile entered the row announcing in a loud voice "make way for the proud grandfather". He sat next to me and with him was Zach's grandmother,followed by his mother and his father who also had that big wide Manske smile. As they began to converse with people in the rows ahead and behind I realized that there was a very large number of family that was there for Zach

In a nutshell, Zach's performance was nothing short of spectacular - for sure he wanted to do his very best. The audience responded enthusiastically and the CELEBRATION OF ZACH began. The ovations were spirited, loud and long thanks to a balcony full of young people. The ovations kept coming all night. The were like "AUDIBLE HUGS". The audience laced with family and friends kept hugging him, and hugging him, the only way they could - with applause that lasted 2 and 3 times longer than usual. He felt them I could see it in his face.

It appeared that Zach was struggling to keep his emotions is check, after all he is a professional now, and he was almost able to do so - right up to " the letter" (the scrumpled reply) . Zach and Kat BOTH cried their way through it. I lost it there myself.


"See ya Sam" - "Yeh see ya Zach" What a nice touch, I thought, when I first heard that they did that at a final performance. Only a few words but so powerful when you actually hear them. There was an audible "ooooh" form the audience when they heard it. I lost it again...


"Yeh see ya Zach" I for one will really miss you.

Joe

[angelenroute]

Thank you guys for some great reviews the past couple of weeks. Hearing of Ben's full rescue of the letter from Janet and Zach's emotional letter scene and farewell was just wonderful. You brought me right there to the theatre with you.

Wishing the cast and their families a very happy rest now before a great fall and winter ahead!

Sean

[jotunheim]

Joe - thank you for providing the details on Zach's last performance. Now I REALLY wish that I could have stayed to see the Sunday evening performance - I love the emotional connection that the cast truly seems to feel for the show.

[kport]

This may have been posted before, but in any event I find the final paragraph quite good:

http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/arts/theat ... way-review

' It's a show for those who want to be inspired more than entertained. You won’t be a passive watcher of this show.'

It seems to identify that, for some, it is as much about the message as it is about entertainment.

[muck912]

Leftovers from a 4-show Billython in St. Paul:

I got my Bachelors Degree in Billyology in Toronto last summer. 18 shows did it. What a marvelous way to get addicted to this show. The four Billys (Marcus, Miles, Ty, Julian) I saw were outstanding. In 18 Toronto shows I saw 18 piano flips. It was fun showing up every couple of weeks and seeing the new things those 4 guys had added to their repertoire. They would add aerials to their Electricity, crossovers to their rope jumping, and they'd change up the Express scene. All 4 became extordinarily good singers. It was so sad when this production closed in September, 2011.

My 1st tour exposure was three months later in Rochester, NY. In my reviews of the 4 tour shows I saw I wrote that I was very impressed with the quality of the performances. I saw 3 guys do Electricity aerials, JP did great cross-overs, and I saw 4 piano flips!

Flash forward to last week in St. Paul. Piano flips are ancient tour history. I saw 4 more Billy jumps off the piano, and they are a complete waste of bloody time. I saw 2 guys do Electricity aerials. Cross-overs have also become ancient history on the tour ever since J.P. retired.

So what is going on here? How come the tour Billys don't do the wow-factor stuff the Toronto Billys did? I think I've got it figured out. It is not the fault of the 4 kids playing the tour Billys. I wish I had some flux capacitors so I could build a time machine. I think that if you transported these 4 tour guys back to early 2011 in Toronto you would see these guys flipping off pianos, crossing-over their ropes, aerialing like crazy during electricity. Remember, in Toronto they would have a stable rehearsal situation. I can't believe it is optimal for these guys to be in a new pracitice situation every week. How much practice time is lost on Tuesdays with last minute load-in problems, safety checks, morning TV/radio appearances, or just figuring out where they are entering and exiting the new stage? And I'll bet the Toronto production spent more money on their creative team, some of whom were local part-timers. This bargain-ba$ement tour is not likely to spend on creatives like a permanent production would. As I write this the tour Billys are in the middle of a 4-week hiatus. The Toronto Billys never had a single hiatus during their 7 month run. So there was no need to spend valuable rehearsal time bringing the boys back up to snuff. Toronto Billys had no time to regress, or even maintain the staus quo, they just got better and better.

In my Rochester reviews I wrote that the down-sized tour was on a par with the Broadway production despite the down-sized dancing dresses, the lack of a motorized Billy bedroom, mild language, no finale BILLY sign, etc. (All wow-factor stuff.) Now that so much wow-factor stuff is missing from the Billys I would no longer say that the tour is on a par with Broadway. It clearly is a step or two below.

But St. Paul gave me some reason for optimism that the tour may be changing for the better. There was some wow-factor shown by all three returning Billys. Noah now does a handspring off of the chair during electricity. I've never seen any other Billy do that. Ben does multiple aerials in his electricity. Kylend has brought cross-overs back to B2B!! (The 5 previous times I've seen Kylend he did not do cross-overs, but he did in St.Paul). Kylend does a one-handed cartwheel off the chair in electricity, and in St. Paul he also did a one-handed cartwheel on the floor in electricity. Let's hope this trend continues. These three returning Billys (and the two new Billys in training) deserve to have the chance to wow the audiences. The tour needs to provide them with the wherewithal to get it done.

They have changed a line in Shine. After telling Tracy Atkinson to get rid of the pie Mrs. W would say "they'll need a winch to get you out of here." That line is gone. It has been replaced by Mrs. W looking at Tracey's legs and saying "it looks like two sausages coming out of a tootoo."

The forum villain during the St. Paul week was John Olive, a local blogger who used the word "under-rehearsed" to describe Noah Parets opening night performance (despite the fact that all other reviewers loved Noah's performance.) Olive's "under-rehearsed" description fit a Dream Ballet sequence I saw a couple of weeks earlier in Buffalo. The tour long-time Older Billy, Max Baud, has been out since mid-August for surgery. Chris Howard is the understudy. He has been Older Billy since Detroit. But the second weekend in Detroit Chris had a wedding to go to and for all 4 shows there was no older Billy! The "pas de deux" became a "pas de une" and there was no flying all weekend. (Remember, this is a bargain-ba$ement tour.) Flash forward to Buffalo. Another Older Billy, Noah Long, is brought in. His first dream ballet is the Saturday matinee with Ben. "Under-rehearsed" is an understatement. Long almost fell off his chair, the two guys were rarely in sync, and Ben ended up awkwardly on the floor at one point. But both dancers survived and I'm not sure if the newbies in the crowd even realized anything was wrong. I was back in Buffalo the next day for the Sunday matinee and was surprised to see Noah Long on the cast board as playing Older Billy again. The doors to the theater did not open on time but behind the locked doors could be heard Tchaikovsky booming throughout the hall. A last minute rehearsal was taking place and it paid off. Noah & Noah (Parets & Long) looked just fine during their Dream Ballet. Both Noah Long & Chris Howard were on as Older Billy in St. Paul neither missed a beat.

Although Noah Parets is 13 years old he could pass for someone much younger. The three other St. Paul Billys are much bigger and beefier. The tour's Tony, Cullen Titmus, modifies one line in the Dance You Little Bastard scene depending on who is that show's Billy. When Noah plays the part Tony says "he's only 11 for Christ's sake, why not give him a childhood." When Billy is Ben, Kylend, or Zach the line becomes "he's only 12 for Christ's sake, why not give him a childhood." It turns out that no matter what their age none of the 4 kids really wants a childhood.

This Toronto rehash reminds me of a Wednesday matinee I attended last August, 2011 at the Canon. Julian had been the Billy on Tuesday night. While milling about on Wednesday waiting for the Lottery to begin Julian and his Mom stroll by heading to the stage door. His Mom drops him off and then stops at the Lottery door to chat with the assembled masses. I ask her if Julian is the back-up Billy today. His Mom says no he is just at the theater to "work on stuff". She dropped him off at 12:00 and would be picking him up at 9:00 that night. With two Wednesday shows going on the Toronto production still had the facilities and the creative staff to spend 9 hours with Julian "working on stuff." I hope the tour is making the same sort of committment to its Billys. The 4 kids deserve it. The fans deserve it.

[kport]

Let's also remember the two boys playing Michael. And the Small Boy. And the wonderful ballet girls. And the Billy's and Michaels and BGs-in-training. And their families.........

[ERinVA]

Thank you, kport. The show couldn't go on without all those talented and dedicated cast members in addition to the Billys. Having seen this SETA version of the tour as well as London, NY, Chicago, Toronto, and the first incarnation of the road tour, I actually think that as a whole, this current BETM tour cast is one of the strongest I have seen anywhere.

Personally, I think that if the main thing one looks for in the show is "tricks" performed by the Billys, then that's a good reason to go to Cirque du Soleil or some other similar production instead of this show. As for the situation with Older Billy, well, sometimes situations happen that just have to be dealt with by "rolling with the punches," as it were. I am always amazed and impressed with the way casts in live theatre manage to do this. But you may be right, muck, that the short-stop schedule caused the two stand-by Older Billys to be under-rehearsed. Let's hope that issue has been resolved.