A nice blog sendoff to Trent posted today:

http://gratuitousviolins.blogspot.com/2 ... billy.html

Thank you for the wonderful countdown BW!

And thank you to Trent for his wonderful performances, and to his family for their support of him and the forum!!

I will miss being there tonight oh so very much!

All the best!
maria

Trent posted a thank you message on his blog today:
http://trentkowalik.com/

Kate has blogged about Trent's last night here: http://www.billyelliotbroadway.com/blog/

She says something very interesting. Trent is staying in the city to tutor with the rest of the Billy's till end of school year.

Yes, Dayton told me that at the stage door on Sunday! He said, he went to give Trent a goodbye hug, then realized and said, "I'll see you Tuesday at tutoring!" And I spoke to an aunt of Trents who said they're keeping the Manahttan apartment, so I'm not sure what Trent will be doing in his afternoons and evenings, or where, but I'm sure someone will find out soon enough. Dance and performance (singing, acting) classes are my guess.

Sorry- I haven't had time to post my full review comments.

I wonder if BETM is going to allow him to keep training with the Billy's. If he would want to. Would he act as an emergency backup.

Kiril went in one show as an emergency back-up a week or two after his final show. He didn't end up needing to go on, but he had to do pre-show warmups and be ready to go on at a moment's notice, just as any regular Billy back-up. So, I could definitely see Trent being in that position -- though I have no information from anyone one way or another about this.

If you read the latest blog post by Kate that I linked earlier in the thread, she says that Trent will continue to be tutored with the Billys until the end of the school year. I have heard that arrangements have been made with the company for him to do that if his school system will agree to allow him to continue as he has been doing. All the time he has been tutored as a Billy, he has been doing the curriculum from his school in Wantagh as a "homebound" student. Each kid who is tutored is technically still registered as a student at his own home school, so although Trent has never actually attended Wantagh High School, he is still considered a student there.

At some point, I'd imagine, he would want to "graduate" as Kate Hennig put it in her blog. I mean, he will get older, and the Billy's will be younger. Just like, I'm sure to James, George, Liam, Leon, Travis (and so on...) it would be weird to go and train with Fox & Tom, etc.

So yeah, I mean Trent's friends are still there, and it will be fine, but in a couple of months, I'm sure he will be ready to move on.

I wonder if to some degree the reason Trent was able to keep it together so well was that he'd still be tutoring with the Billy's and t/f keep up with the cast for a bit longer. (Of course I know he's a fantastic actor, but you know what I mean...I'm pretty sure he didn't want to leave Billy - that's been his life for 5 years)