Raising the barre

By Diana Nollen/The Gazette

It's not just the dancers who are toeing the line in “Billy Elliot the Musical.” Everyone affiliated with the award-winning play is bending and stretching to make it all work.

The national tour swinging through Des Moines from June 12 to 17 is “a well-oiled machine,” says first assistant stage manager Melissa Chacon, 41, a Des Moines native and University of Iowa graduate who now lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

“We've got so many actors - with 13 to 15 kids, adults and quick changes - it's controlled chaos” backstage, she says. “Everybody knows what needs to happen next and where to go. We're in a really nice routine now. We can put the understudies in seamlessly. ...

“You wouldn't know from watching us that anything was going on backstage,” she says by phone from a spring tour stop in Los Angeles. “That's part of the magic.”

She estimates between 80 and 90 people are in the touring entourage coming to her hometown, counting the children, adult actors, crew members, musicians, management, guardians and tutors for the young actors ages 10 to 16.

It takes a village to raise this story of a young boy who ditches his boxing lessons to secretly study ballet in the hardscrabble mining district in northern England. It's the mid-1980s, and all the union miners are embroiled in a strike, sending ripples of violence and high tension throughout the community and their home lives.

Based on the hit 2000 movie, the play features music by Elton John and swept up 10 Tony Awards in 2009. It opened in London in 2005, came to Broadway in 2008 and has been staged in Australia, Canada and Korea. Two Iowa City natives have played the title role: Alex Ko on Broadway from 2009 to 2011 and Marcus Pei in Chicago and Toronto from 2010 to 2011. Both have aged out of the role and won't be in Des Moines.

Four boys are alternating the title role on this national tour. Staff members search far and wide to find the boys with the right dance training, height and unchanged voices to leap into the arduous role.

“We're hiring a boy for a title role at the age of 12, and we know in six to 12 months, this child is going to change,” says assistant choreographer Mary Giattino, 31, of New York. “It's a risk we take and a risk that usually works out for the best. We usually have the boys for at least a year ... sometimes two or two-and-a-half, depending” on how quickly they grow.

“The Billys have to come in with the required ballet training,” she says. “What's not required is tap, acrobatics, vocal and acting skills. Believe it or not, we have hired many boys without those qualities. We're looking for a smart, special, well-rounded child without fear. ... The boys we find are just the smartest children I've ever met.”

They go through a “Billy boot camp” to prepare for the role and acquire any other necessary skills. The rest of the cast has to meet stringent physical and talent requirements as well, to perform the demanding choreography.

“Peter Darling is pure brilliance. I've never worked for a choreographer like him,” Giattino says. “His choreography is not dance steps, it's all intention-driven. That's why you don't feel like you're watching dance, and why at the end, you're crying.

“One of my favorite moments in the show is ‘Angry Dance,' at the end of Act I. Billy's been told he can't go to the audition because of the uprising in his town. What's fantastic is that the scene leading in is so dramatic, beautiful, very moving and horrific when you're following this boy's story of how talented he is. He could have a life outside of this town, but he's stripped of everything he has when he's told he can't dance anymore. He goes into one of the most intense tap numbers I've seen onstage or ever coached.”

She says only a couple of dance numbers are more traditional Broadway style pieces.

“The final tap extravaganza is a celebration of dance. Every other number is storytelling,” Giattino says.

The discipline required to make all that happen is “huge,” she says. “You don't realize it, because it's not a chorus line. It's not one of those shows where every number is a dance routine. (The choreography) comes from a pedestrian quality of movement. With the miners and cops, you don't even realize they're dancing. That's how you know you are watching something special.

“They're dancing on and off chairs, and with the patterns they're making, it's intense and physically demanding,” she says. “A lot of the cast works out. We have a physical therapist on-site who travels with our show.”

While the adults do much of the offstage maintenance and training on their own, the children receive assistance, ranging from core and cardio classes to weekly massages and daytime schoolwork with two tutors.

Giattino will be coming to Des Moines to continue her work with the cast.

“They're coming off a nice little four-week layoff, so I'll come in for a brush-up,” she says. “Every four weeks I come out to get us back on track. I try to give them some juicy things to think about, to give them a new energy. The associate director also comes out to rejuvenate them. I'm really looking forward to it.”

“Solidarity” is the theme of the cohesive cast, as well as one of the major songs in the show.

“There's a strong connection between the adults and children. You don't always get that” with a touring show, Giattino says, noting that the kids look up to the adults who in turn, serve as mentors and family on the road. The benefits run both ways.

“The kids bring something so beautiful and unique out of the adults in their professional Broadway setting that I've never seen in any other show,” Giattino says. “Their hearts and minds are opened just a little more.”

With “quite a few layers of folks” on the tour, Chacon is one of four stage managers who help make it all work. As the first assistant stage manager, a lot of her work happens backstage. Her days can stretch from 6 to 11 p.m., and can start as early as 6 a.m. when the show's setting up or when she's working rehearsals from 1 to 5 p.m. It takes about six hours to tear it all down and put it back on six semis to go to the next stop.

During performances, “I just kind of manage my side of the stage - the set moves, props, actors making entrances, while also trying to call the show's light cues, set moves and fly cues,” Chacon says. “As stage manager, I have to focus on the details while keeping the big picture in mind. You need a lot of organizational skills and you have to be able to have folks work with you and feel good about it.”

Assistant choreographer Giattino says there's plenty to feel good about with this show, which opened in St. Louis on Nov. 1 and is slated to run at least through June 2013.

“Your audiences are going to see a wonderful show,” she says. “In order to get the full experience of this show, you'll want to see it four times, because each boy is so different and so talented.”

Arts Extra

• What: “Billy Elliot the Musical”
• When: June 12 to 17; 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday; 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday
• Where: Civic Center of Greater Des Moines, 221 Walnut St.
• Tickets: $29 to $75 at Civic Center Ticket Office, (515) 246-2300 or Civiccenter.org
• Information: Civiccenter.org
• Show website: Billyelliotthemusical.com
• Synopsis: Set in a small English town, the story follows Billy as he stumbles out of the boxing ring and into a ballet class, discovering a surprising talent for dance that inspires his family and his whole community - and changes his life forever.