Sunday, Sep. 07, 2008
Billy Elliot
Even the most successful London stage musicals don't always have an easy time on Broadway. (Just ask Andrew Lloyd Webber.) Billy Elliot, a smash on the West End since its 2005 opening, has an even bigger challenge than most. The story of a teenage boy who shocks his coal-mining family by taking up dancing is gritty, a bit dated (lots of Maggie Thatcher jokes) and very English (in London, the north England accents were hard for an American to even decipher). But it's a big, emotional, high-energy show (with a good Elton John score) that just might win American hearts as convincingly as it has the Brits.