Tall and Small Boys, US/CA Tour

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Rich B
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Tall and Small Boys, US/CA Tour

Post by Rich B »

I didn't notice this until today when I was flipping through the program from my recent trip to Cleveland. In reading the bios, I noticed that Landon Harris, who plays Tall Boy(and Michael understudy), has 10 years of ballet training and has performed in Giselle, Swan Lake, A Midsummer Nights Dream and the Nutcracker for the Colorado Ballet.

Ten years of ballet? :o Looks like we'll have to keep an eye on him to see if he's in the Billy pipeline.
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Re: Tall and Small Boys, Second National Tour

Post by mrmikerocks »

Not to mention he is a twin. :lol:
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Rich B
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Re: Tall and Small Boys, Second National Tour

Post by Rich B »

mrmikerocks wrote:Not to mention he is a twin. :lol:
and his twin is a dancer, too!

Here's an old article on them from 2009:

http://www.summitdaily.com/article/2009 ... o%20Ballet
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Re: Tall and Small Boys, Second National Tour

Post by mrmikerocks »

I didn't know that they both were dancers. Are they identical twins? Thanks for the article. Very interesting.
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Re: Tall and Small Boys, Second National Tour

Post by Billy Fanatic »

ERinVA wrote:Blumenthal Performing Arts has posted a digital version of the Billy Elliot Playbill that will be used at Ovens Auditorium.
I noticed that only one Small Boy, Nicholas Lampiasi, is listed. No understudy is credited and the other boys in the cast are clearly much too old and tall for the role. This leaves me wondering how the tour covers the role if Nicholas is unavailable to perform due to illness, injury, or (as provided in the Equity contract) being on vacation or taking a personal day.

Anyone have any idea how they handle this contingency?
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BROADWAY - 19:
Billy: Alex K. x3, Giuseppe x1, Jacob x2, Joseph x5, Julian x2, Myles x1, Peter x4, Tade x1
Michael: Cameron x7, Jack x5, Jake S. x2, Neil x5
Debbie: Georgi x5, Lilla x14
Small Boy: Alex D. x10, Seth x3, Zachary x6
Tall Boy/Posh Boy: Ben x12, Giuseppe x1, Joseph x2, Julian x2, Myles x1, Tade x1

TOUR - 3
RICHMOND, VA:

Billy: Ben x1, Drew x1, Noah x1
Michael: Jake K. x1, Sam x2
Debbie: Samantha x3
Small Boy: Cal x3
Tall Boy/Posh Boy: Jake K. x2, Sam x1
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porschesrule
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Re: Tall and Small Boys, Second National Tour

Post by porschesrule »

One of the small Ballet Girls is the u/s for Small Boy.
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Re: Tall and Small Boys, Second National Tour

Post by Billy Fanatic »

porschesrule wrote:One of the small Ballet Girls is the u/s for Small Boy.
Porschesrule,

Thank you for answering; I do appreciate it very much.

From your answer, when the second tour's Small Boy is unavailable they have instead a Small Girl; or more accurately, a small girl pretending to be a small boy playing Small Boy. I can understand the economics, but not artistic integrity, of the production doing this. Clearly, Small Boy is not a sex neutral character; the character is very much a boy (a girl in the boxing class, for example, wouldn't make much sense, especially in an 1980's era coal mining town,) Obviously, there's no reason a girl costumed and made up to look like a boy can't play the part. However I feel that doing so results in somewhat lessening the credibility and believability of the role; the audience still knows they're seeing a girl playing a boy. I'm somewhat prejudiced in my opinion on this as I'm not a big fan of having girls play boy roles or vice versa, or for that matter, adults playing characters that are children. (One of my fondest Broadway hopes is that someone will put on a major production of Peter Pan that actually uses an appropriate age boy or boys in the title role instead of an adult female playing a boy.)

The using of a small Ballet Girl as the Small Boy understudy is actually better than what I thought the production might do. I speculated that when Nicholas is out that they handled it by cutting the role of Small Boy for that performance. While the role does contribute to the overall depth and specialness of BETM and in specific scenes does either reinforce a core theme of the show, make a point, provide contrast between Billy's and Small Boy's families, or furnish comedic moments, nothing in the role is absolutely critical to the overall storyline and performance.

Hopefully, the Broadway production and the others that currently use rotating Small Boys don't decide to cut corners and follow the one Small Boy with Ballet Girl understudy route of the second tour. Again, I'm somewhat prejudiced in my opinion on this as I absolutely adore the onstage antics of Small Boy and enjoy seeing different boys in the same production doing the role. Each one has their differences in how they play the part; to me, that's very much part of the charm and essence of BETM.
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"Normal not to be normal"

BROADWAY - 19:
Billy: Alex K. x3, Giuseppe x1, Jacob x2, Joseph x5, Julian x2, Myles x1, Peter x4, Tade x1
Michael: Cameron x7, Jack x5, Jake S. x2, Neil x5
Debbie: Georgi x5, Lilla x14
Small Boy: Alex D. x10, Seth x3, Zachary x6
Tall Boy/Posh Boy: Ben x12, Giuseppe x1, Joseph x2, Julian x2, Myles x1, Tade x1

TOUR - 3
RICHMOND, VA:

Billy: Ben x1, Drew x1, Noah x1
Michael: Jake K. x1, Sam x2
Debbie: Samantha x3
Small Boy: Cal x3
Tall Boy/Posh Boy: Jake K. x2, Sam x1
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Re: Tall and Small Boys, Second National Tour

Post by Todd »

Agree with your comments about casting the small boy role. Not sure why they don't just have a 2nd small boy to alternate performances like they've done in all the other productions.

Another idea - rather than using a small ballet girl as the understudy - is to use the alternate Michael as the small boy. This was done in the earlier days of the London show, as I remember Ryan Longbottom and Sean Malone playing the small boy several times. In fact, it's Sean you see as the small boy in the promotional video starring Colin Bates as Billy at the very beginning during "Take me up . . .," even though Sean was already playing Michael at that point I believe. It seemed to work pretty well, as it's not particularly crucial to the plot if the small boy is actually a "kinda small" boy instead.
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Re: Tall and Small Boys, Second National Tour

Post by Billy Whiz »

I've seen one of the Debbies play small boy in London.

I think I read somewhere that the reason Sean played Small Boy that day was because there was no actual Small Boy in the theatre when it was filmed.
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Brad
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Re: Tall and Small Boys, Second National Tour

Post by Brad »

Billy Whiz wrote:I've seen one of the Debbies play small boy in London.

I think I read somewhere that the reason Sean played Small Boy that day was because there was no actual Small Boy in the theatre when it was filmed.
Bet of thats the case there are some small boys (well not so small anymore) out there kicking themselves for ducking outside for a slurpy :lol: :lol:
Cheers

Brad
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