'Billy Elliot' makes the leap from Broadway to Chicago

When "Billy Elliot" made le grande jeté from cinema to stage five years ago, it landed exactly where it belongs.

So says director Stephen Daldry, who insists the story of the working-class boy from an English mining town who dreams of being a ballet dancer "found its natural home" on stage.

He should know.

Daldry directed not just the Tony Award-winning musical, which begins its U.S. tour Thursday with an extended run at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts Oriental Theatre, but also the hit 2000 film that inspired it.

Growing up, Daldry fantasized about directing for the theater, not the cinema. But the former artistic director of London's Royal Court Theatre changed his mind after longtime friend, playwright Lee Hall, sent him the screenplay for "Billy Elliot."

The setting of the film during England's devastating 1984 mineworkers strike piqued the interest of Daldry, who observed the strike's effects firsthand while working on a show called "Never the Same Again" that toured welfare halls in rural mining towns during that time.

Daldry signed on to direct the film, which was produced by Jonathan Finn.

The film earned critical and commercial acclaim, including three BAFTA Awards and three Academy Award nominations, as well as the attention of Elton John, a devoted and very determined fan.

"When he likes something, he champions it," said Finn.

Yet, Finn initially greeted John's suggestion they make the film into a musical with skepticism.

"I remember smiling, thinking it was a bad idea, but (John) was very keen on it, saying he wanted to do it," Finn said.

For Laurence Olivier Award-winning choreographer Peter Darling, another longtime theater veteran who collaborated on the film, the challenges remained the same.

"The main thing was to remain faithful to telling the story. That you really try to tell the story through songs or dance and that you constantly try to anchor it to the narrative," Darling said.

Daldry agreed to direct the musical, on the condition they throw out everything they had done before and start fresh.

"Once we started to work on the stage, we never had a conversation about the film," said Daldry, who since making his feature film debut with "Billy Elliot" went on to direct the Oscar-nominated "The Hours" and "The Reader."

"Billy Elliot - The Musical" took on its own identity.

"The further away from the film we got, the more it seemed to work. We had a chance to correct the things we didn't like in the film," said Finn, referencing the enhanced role of the miners and townspeople in the musical.

Adapting the story to the stage offered other advantages as well.

"The kids are dancing in real time," said Daldry. "There's something special about seeing them approaching the hardest thing they could imagine doing, and doing it with grace."

Witnessing those moments "is startling on stage in a way you could never have on celluloid," Daldry said. "There's something about the live experience that is impossible to repeat on film."

Indeed. From the brilliantly choreographed expression of rage and frustration that concludes the first act to the startlingly lovely second act pas de deux to the poignant exchanges between characters, "Billy Elliot" is the complete package.

The show is a big-budget spectacle that earns both its laughs and its tears honestly.

"Billy Elliot's" current stage incarnation differs from the show that premiered five years ago in London, said Daldry referring to wholly re-imagined scenes involving the return of Billy's father to the mine and Billy's audition for the Royal Ballet School.

After productions in London, Sydney, New York and now Chicago, "Billy Elliot" still feels miraculous, said Daldry.

And it continues to evolve thanks in part to Tommy Batchelor, Giuseppe Bausilio, Cesar Corrales and J.P. Viernes, the young dancers who will alternate performing the very demanding titular role.

"All four kids are so unique. They each have something special," said actress Susie McMonagle, the Marriott Theatre and Drury Lane Oak Brook veteran who plays Billy's mom.

Each has impressed Broadway veteran Blake Hammond, who plays ballet accompanist Mr. Braithwaite.

"They're so wide-eyed," he said, "this is huge for them. To watch them become better, it inspires me." Much of the show's appeal, not to mention its success, rests on the boys' slender shoulders. And the same thing that happens to Billy, happens to the boys who play him.

"What you see happening before your eyes is the flourishing of a child," said Darling. "What the audience sees on stage in the course of 31/2 hours is what I've seen over the course of six months.

"One of the reasons we've all remained so attached to the project is you're seeing children being given the opportunity to do what they do really well," he said. "It sounds corny, but the show and the people in it feel like they're part of a family, or a big village."

Ultimately, that's what "Billy Elliot" is all about, said McMonagle.

"It's not just about a boy who dances, it's the story of his family," she said.

And it's a story about sacrifice and self-expression and talent found in the most unlikely place, within a most unlikely individual.

• Some of the information for this story was obtained on a trip sponsored by Broadway in Chicago.

"Billy Elliot"Where: Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre, 24 W. Randolph St., ChicagoWhen: Previews begin Thursday, March 18; opening night is Sunday, April 11Tickets: (800) 775-2000 or broadwayinchicago.comFalse469298A boy finds refuge in ballet class in the Tony Award-winning Broadway production of "Billy Elliot," beginning its national tour in Chicago. False