By Jay Young
Elton John was in Toronto last week for the official opening of Billy Elliot: The Musical, a production I was lucky to recently see. The musical, which premiered in London in 2005 and won 10 Tony awards in 2009, is a stage adaptation of the popular 2000 coming-of-age film about Billy Elliot, a fictional, 11-year-old, working-class lad who dreams of becoming a professional dancer. As I watched the musical, I was struck by the ways in which the musical’s overarching historical context – the British mining strike of 1984-1985 – served as the backdrop to examine issues of class and gender through the story of a struggling community and one very talented boy. Yet I also pondered: what happened to those who lacked the opportunity to leave town like Billy? Continue reading