Billy Elliot the Forum

The opening in Chicago and mooted Toronto plus touring shows, raises the question, where will they get the extra Billys. When Trent goes in just over 2 weeks NY will have 2 Australians and a Canadian Billy plus Alex Ko if he recovers. If Alex is unable to continue do we know of any Billys in training?i

Chicago has another Canadian and a Swiss. When you consider that Kiril and David both came from the same dance school, it is hard to believe that the rest of the US has been unable to throw up potential Billys for the 2010 NY/Chicago shows. Dayton is rumoured to have a 6month contract Michael supposedly a shorter one. Whether that is Equity rules or not, finding Billys must be a headache at least in the US.

This time last year, OZ announced its 9th Billy all locals just 15 months into their OZ season. Corey Snide did come on loan very early in the piece to cover injuries.

The UK seems to have a supply line working efficienctly. UK plus OZ together equals half the population of the US.

For the immediate future, here's what I believe is the plan...

Broadway: Trent's contract was extended to coincide with when Alex was going to be ready and Michael's is a short term contract which I believe was timed to coincide with when Jacob Clemente is ready to take his place

London: There's a boy who has been in "Billy camp" for months now named Rhys Yeomens who I believe is scheduled to take Fox's place at the end of March.

You can bet they have Billys in the pipeline that we just haven't heard about for the long range.

Funny that several of the UK Billies were actually from the US: Colin, Corey, Trent, Hogan, Tanner

Now that they have an actual US production, they get Billies from other countries...make sense much??

Not that I haven't adored every Billy in the US production, and I'm sooo glad we've got Dayton and Michael- I just don't get it. I know we've got 'em in the US- and then we send them to England. Now, for our actual US shows it's like the regular kids aren't good enough- we've gotta get some kinda ballet prodigies or something from other countries.

IMHO, Tanner was the most amazing all-around Billy I've ever seen. Just a regular kid from Nebraska.

Interestingly, although we in the US have supplied a good number of Billys to the UK, as you have noted, jill, we have yet to see a return of the favor.