Billy Elliot the Forum

It appears that the national tour of BETM will end on Sept. 2nd in Boston. There are no cities planned after the Boston run. I don't expect the final tour show to be anything close to the final Broadway performance, but I will be there to witness one more BILLY ending.

Runs get extended all the time. More stops may be getting booked as we speak. In fact, some may already be planned, and simply not announced yet. Maybe Billy will end in Boston, maybe it won't, but there's no announcement saying the tour has a closing date. I wouldn't be assuming the tour is ending there until we get one.

I agree...that's a huge assumption at this point.

If you are planning a trip to Boston on Sept. 2nd you might be out of luck. The schedule was moved up when they reworked the tour. Boston is supposed to end on Aug. 19th. However the master tour schedule web page has been recently switched back to show a "Boston1" run ending Sept. 2nd, so who knows?

I believe the reason we have not seen any dates beyond August is because it is too soon for the producing organizations in each city to announce their fall seasons. These announcements usually come out during the spring.

An unofficial schedule was posted in October. The details may change and it already doesn't exactly match the official schedule, but it does suggest that there is more planned after Boston.

ActingDude17 wrote:Runs get extended all the time. More stops may be getting booked as we speak. In fact, some may already be planned, and simply not announced yet. Maybe Billy will end in Boston, maybe it won't, but there's no announcement saying the tour has a closing date. I wouldn't be assuming the tour is ending there until we get one.

Just a hunch, but contracts often are six months in duration. Labor Day would be just about the anniversary when the current tour was put together. So I would wait a while before thinking that things will not go on for another six months, or longer.

My bigger question is this: with the end of Broadway, will new cast be able to train on tour? I would have thought that there are quite a few Billys available to carry on but......I suppose new ones could train in London. Has anyone thought about this?

They could also set up a training area in one city, and then just move the new cast to the touring city, and do a blocking/run through in an empty house.
That's what they do with production shows on cruise ships. They use a rehearsal facility to learn the shows, and then when the cast gets to the ship, they do a few run throughs before performing the show in front of an audience.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but when the show was in Toronto, did they not use facilities at the National Ballet School? Also I believe a couple of the Billy's are now attending the school???

rob_hanson1979 wrote:They could also set up a training area in one city, and then just move the new cast to the touring city, and do a blocking/run through in an empty house.
That's what they do with production shows on cruise ships. They use a rehearsal facility to learn the shows, and then when the cast gets to the ship, they do a few run throughs before performing the show in front of an audience.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but when the show was in Toronto, did they not use facilities at the National Ballet School? Also I believe a couple of the Billy's are now attending the school???

I believe tour ship entertainment casts train (usually in NYC or Miami) before joining a ship. They are really subcontracted from a large (or several large) companies that provide entertainers for cruise ships, resorts and hotels.

Just my two cents but it would be cheaper and a lot better to have Billys in training join the London cast, live in the Billy House, and get a real feel for the play before rotating to the US cast. And, for another two cents I will opine that it is well past time the US had a real British Billy join the tour! (Even one from Seattle....)

isn't that what I said?

Don't forget, they also have to train adult cast. Most tour companies will probably maintain some rehearsal space in NY, which is where most tours originate from, isn't it?