Inside Billy Elliot boot camp
Jack van Beynen goes backstage with the boys of Billy Elliot as they prepare for the most ‘‘exhausting’’ roles of their lives.
In the mirrors lining the walls of Candy Lane Dance Studio in Auckland, Stanley Reedy is watching himself dance. He is running through a tap sequence for Auckland Theatre Company’s upcoming production of Billy Elliot the Musical. It’s a complicated series of steps, and he has to watch himself to make sure he’s getting them right. His heels and toes clatter on the vinyl mat rolled out to protect the polished wood floor. The metal on his tap shoes flashes in the light of the studio’s chandeliers.
Around Stanley, five other boys are tapping out the same steps. They have the same athletic builds, the same brown or sandyblond hair, the same big eyes and cherubic faces. Their click of their shoes is synchronised. They could almost be Stanley’s reflections.
When Stanley, 14, found out he’d got the part of Michael in Billy Elliot, he was milking cows on his parents’ dairy farm near Westport, on the South Island’s West Coast. It was the culmination of a long audition process that involved a drive across the Main Divide to Christchurch, and a twoflight trip up to Auckland. ’’It was amazing. A good feeling. You wouldn’t think a little old Westport person would get it,’’ he says.
Stanley was one of around 70 boys who auditioned for the show, director Colin McColl says.Of the chosen six, whose ages range between 10 and 14, three will play the titular Billy, and three his flamboyant best friend Michael. The plan is to rotate them when the play opens in October. McColl says the roles are ‘‘too exhausting’’ to ask the boys to play two nights in a row.
To give the boys an opportunity to practise the many elements of their performance, McColl has gathered them in Auckland for two weeks of what he calls ‘‘Billy boot camp’’. The idea is to get the young actors ready for full rehearsals with the rest of the cast. They have singing lessons, Geordie accent training, and learn about their characters. Above all, there’s the dancing: hours and hours of practice in the mirrors at Candy Lane.
‘‘They just have to get the tap steps second nature, in their bodies, so that they can start doing all the singing and all the other things they have to do,’’ McColl says. ’’They’re doing these really, really intricate tap routines and they’re having conversations, Billy and Michael are having conversations with each other.’’
Jaxson Cook, 12, had nine tap and ballet practices a week in his hometown of Wellington to prepare for the boot camp. He and his teacher learned the Billy Elliot routines by watching videos, unlike the Auckland-based cast members who were taught by the show’s choreographer and tap teacher. When he arrived at the boot camp he found, frustratingly, that he was doing all the moves slightly wrong. They need to be perfect, he says.
While he’s in Auckland, Jaxson has been living in a house with Stanley and Christchurch-based Daniel Bridgman. They have a tap floor out in the garage so they can keep practising when they get home. He’s been loving living with other boys who share his passion for musical theatre.
‘‘I always love doing musical theatre because when I get those friends, I’m like, ‘Yes!’ Not that I’m saying anything bad about my other friends, it’s just musical theatre friends understand most about what I’m talking about sometimes.’’
Getting to know other boys who like dancing has been a highlight for Stanley, too. ‘‘You don’t see a lot of boys in Westport dancing, or get to be in a room with them,’’ he says.
There are some interesting parallels between the plot and characters of Billy Elliot, and the boys who play them. Based on the 2000 film of the same name, the story is set in north-east England during the 1984 - 85 miners strike. Billy is an 11-year-old who, with the help of an inspiring teacher, battles to make his staunch coal mining family accept his love for dance.
Like Billy, Stanley and Jaxson have sometimes had a hard time convincing people to accept their love of ballet. Jaxson only began learning ballet and tap after starring in The Sound of Music in 2014, but he’d wanted to start much earlier.
‘‘When I was a really young boy my mum really wanted me to do ballet, and I liked ballet at the time, just I don’t think I understood - I was five or six, and there were really mean bullies then - but I didn’t really understand probably how you can be yourself. A few years later, I’m fine now, I do ballet whenever I want, and if someone makes fun of me they can go stuff themselves.’’
Stanley has a similar ‘‘stuff them’’ attitude. ’’In primary school for a year I got a little bit of banter, but not much, because I was as sporty as you could be ... so I think they thought he’s good at sport, and they sort of started treating it as it was a sport, like I was a rugby player, more,’’ he says.
‘‘Then for first term of high school, I got a lot of gay. Everyone’s just like, ‘Oh, you’re gay,’ and I’m like, ‘Just because I do ballet doesn’t make me gay,’ ... It was funny though because I’ve had more girlfriends than any of them. They’re like, ‘You’re gay,’ and I’m like, ‘You haven’t even had a girlfriend.’’’
McColl says Auckland Theatre Company chose to do Billy Elliot because it’s a crowd-pleaser. The musical’s central theme of following your dreams gives it ‘‘universal appeal’’. The production will be the first show performed in the company’s brand new ASB Waterfront Theatre in Auckland’s Wynyard Quarter, and they want as many people as possible to come and see their new performance space.
Working with such a young cast is not without its challenges. The boys can only work so many hours each day; they need tutors to help them keep up with their school work; a chaperone needs to keep an eye on them at all times.
McColl is confident it will be worth it, both for the company and the young actors. What they learn preparing for the production will stand them in good stead for both future careers in theatre and for life, he says.
‘‘It doesn’t matter if they go off to have careers in the theatre, it will stand them in good stead for anything that they do really, knowing that they can, if they set their minds and bodies to it, they can achieve it.’’
Billy Elliot the Musical opens on October 7 at the ASB Waterfront Theatre, Auckland.