Billy Elliot's Smash Debut

An incongruous fashion posse mixed with celebrities and New York City's mayor at the brightest Broadway night in memory.

It was a Broadway night to end all Broadway nights. The combination of the electric gifts of British director Stephen Daldry and the melodic score of Elton John brought out an audience humming with Hollywood agents, studio heads, movie stars, and theater royalty—some, like NBC chief Jeff Zucker, with their kids in tow.

An incongruous fashion posse trailed behind the nostril-waving Italian couturier Valentino, while Daldry mate and London friend Kevin Spacey, along with Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Spamalot producer Bill Haber, and Universal chief Ron Meyer delayed the start time by working the aisles. At the end of the show a plump, festive Elton joined the cast bows wearing a tutu. The sense of post-Obama celebration was palpable.

Billy Elliot celebrates the journey of a young boy from a grim Northern town doomed by the miners’ strike in Thatcher’s England who finds release—and his own unique identity—in the magic of ballet. The combination of the child’s Obama-like self-invention with the impending crisis of a jobless America added to the show’s timely union with the zeitgeist. In the era where the only community is virtual, it celebrates working-class solidarity as the pits close along with a way of life.

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Read The New York Times’ rave review.