Hair
When this 1967 blockbuster first arrived it was a shock to the system. Hippies, nudity, free love, tribal life that mixed the black and white race, pot smoking, burning draft cards in the time of the Vietnam War, and rock music—all so thrilling! In retrospect such innocence. Now we have new wars, new collapses, new drugs, less love and even less hair!
   However, this is an excellent production that rocks the house. The cast, all wonderful, are all over the place—in the aisles, on the staircases, in the lap of the audience, gleefully urging a love-in for peace, flower power and song and dance, dance, dance. At the end the audience is invited to join them on the stage. We still have the “Age of Aquarius,” “Let The Sunshine In,” “Hashish,” “Sodomy,” “Hare Krishna,” and all the other favorites of the Ragni, Radd and MacDermot classic and they hold up beautifully.
   It is impossible to name all the cast members that shine but Will Swenson as Berger, Caissie Levy as Sheila, Gavin Creel as Claude, Kacie Sheik as Jeanie and Sasha Allen as Dionne are all admirable. Scott Pask has supplied the scenic design, Michael McDonald the colorful costumes, Karole Armitage the joyous choreography and Diane Paulus the integrative direction.
  It still rocks the house!

West Side Story
This 1957 musical returns with a bang. Who can fail to appreciate the music of Leonard Bernstein, the lyrics of Stephen Sondheim, the choreography of Jerome Robbins and the book by Arthur Laurents? In this revival Laurents, who at the age of 91 is now the director, has added another dimension by having the Puerto Rican members of the cast sing several songs in Spanish. While this may be grist for the mill for the Hispanic audience it does not always work for the others. For example “I Feel Pretty” can be sung in any language without diminishing its import but “A Boy Like That” should not be tampered with. It’s one thing to say “A boy like that who'd kill your brother” and quite another to sing those words in Spanish to an audience not familiar with the language. Other than that this show is a beauty!
   Josefina Scaglione, a 21 year old from Argentina is a magnificent soprano who looks like the innocent young Maria should while Matt Cavenaugh, a native American, is a perfect Tony. Karen Olivo is a splendid Anita who dances up a storm and the rest of the Sharks and the Jets are equally at home in Robbin’s complex choreography. The staging of the “Somewhere” number is glorious as is the voice of the youngster (Nicholas Barasch) who exemplifies the beauty of the wish to have “a place for us.”
   For those who do not know the story it is an update of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet with all its young love and attendant tragedy. It takes place in New York in the ’50s with rival gangs—the original inhabitants versus the Puerto Rican newcomers—vying for dominance in the streets while native Tony and immigrant Maria are struggling young lovers who can not triumph over these forces. Leonard Bernstein’s music carries this unhappy plot to soaring heights and guarantees the audiences's adoration. A most beautiful revival!

Waiting For Godot
Samuel Beckett’s 1950 absurdist play has to be done with just the right touch to be effective and Roundabout Theatre’s new production has it. It is moving, comic, ridiculous, profound and meaningful to each person who can interpret it as they wish.
   Two derelicts, Estragon (Nathan Lane) and Vladimir (Bill Irwin), are wandering about a seemingly barren landscape filled with boulders and one scraggly tree. They are ragged, filthy, hungry and uncomfortable yet they can not leave this place because they are waiting for Godot who will hopefully bring purpose and meaning to their existence. But he never comes despite promise after promise. Instead a bloated huge figure Pozzo (John Goodman) arrives accompanied by his servant Lucky (John Glover) attached to a rope, burdened down with bags of sand and a bucket of food for his master. This servant performs on command, sputtering out a long nonsensical dirge of philosophy until the point of exhaustion. Yet the next time they are seen the master is blind, the servant is a deaf mute. Still no Godot—and our dejected tramps sit and wait, unable to leave.
   Nathan Lane and Bill Irwin are perfection engaging in bits of humor, pathos and comraderie. John Goodman has emerged from his TV days into a formidable talent and John Glover is magnificent. Santo Loquasto has designed a set for the imagination and Jane Greenwood the costumes for no-man's land. Anthony Page has directed a thoroughly moving piece of theater for which no explanation is necessary.

Accent On Youth
Samson Raphaelson wrote this drawing room comedy in 1934 and while it remains funny it is slightly dated and not quite appropriate for todays audiences. It is definitely a ’30s mileu—from the costumes to the setting to the speech patterns and while mature audiences might enjoy the nostaglia, young ones might find it rather silly. It seems Steven Gaye (David Hyde Pierce) a successful 50-ish playwriter with 19 hits to his name is having trouble with his latest endeavor. His cast is uncertain about it and he has trouble integrating it. About to cancel the whole production he fires his 25-year old secretary (Mary Catherine Garrison) and prepares to take a boat to Finland with his past love who is in the play and escape the entire season. But lo and behold! his secretary announces she loves him as well as his play and everything changes. The play is a hit, the secretary takes over the part of the ingenue as the original actress is still in Finland and with much trepidation the playwrite plans to marry the much younger secretary. But it seems the hero of the play (David Furr) has fallen in love with the secretary and intends to marry her at once. Ah youth! Shenanagins follow and follow and follow.
   All the cast is excellent with Charles Kimbrough almost stealing the show as Gaye's manservant. But nobody steals a show from David Hyde Pierce, not even John Lee Beatty (scenic design) or Jane Greenwood (costumes) or David Sullivan the director of note.

Desire Under The Elms
Eugene O’Neill’s 1924 play has been whittled down to 100 minutes with no intermission and no let up in its driving intensity. Gone are the elm trees and the beautiful farm. Instead we have rocks the size of boulders encompassing the stage and even hanging from the ceiling. The floors are barren, the house is suspended in the air moving up and down by way of pulleys, the scenery pops up from under the floor. The townspeople are gone, the fiddler is gone, any attempt at levity is gone. We have stark, tense melodrama in full blast as the inevitable tragedy enfolds. But it is still 1850.
   Ephraim Cabot (Brian Dennehy) has three sons, two dead wives and a huge farm. He has just taken a third, much younger wife (Carla Gugino) who now is a threat to the sons in terms of inheritance of the farm. The youngest son Eben (Pablo Schreiber) of the second wife buys off his two elder brothers (Boris McGiver and Daniel Stewart Sherman) both of whom are portrayed here as loutish and simple minded so that they are now free to search for gold in California while he stakes his claim to the farm. But the young wife Abbie not only wants the farm and the supposed security it purports to represent, she also wants the youth and sexuality of the young son and as it turns out he returns the desire. They deceive Ephraim, tricking him into believing their son is his progeny. And now the troubled consciences and guilt take over. Ah Oedipus!
   O’Neill has often used Greek tragedy and Feudian dogma in his plays. Here it is ferocious what with Walt Spangler (scenic design) and Robert Falls (director) emphasizing the harshness and inevitability of the events. Carla Gugino exhudes passion and gullibility while Pablo Schreiber and Brian Dennehy are both viciousness and victimhood incarnate.

The Philanthropist
Christopher Hampton’s play is supposedly a response to Moliere’s The Misanthrope—that is rather than a play about a man who hates everyone this is about a man who loves everyone—a man who sees no evil in anything even the assassination of the Prime Minister and his cabinet. This man is a gentle soul who accepts everything, takes everyone seriously and literally and brooks no disagreement. He is the soul of tolerance, a professor of philology in an esteemed university whose every word implies acceptance of whatever is happening. And therein lies the problem. This amorphous cloud cannot be the main focus of a play. At least not this version where everything is happening around him and his response is so lethargic as to make the audience totally unsympathetic.
   Matthew Broderick plays our non-hero (Philip) with gray hair, a rumpled cardigan and a placating smile. His fiance Celia (an excellent Anna Madeley) eventually finds his tolerant dullness and weakness an obstacle too great to overcome. After finding out he has slept with another woman (Jennifer Mudge) because he could not hurt her feelings by rejecting her and discovering he is not too dismayed by her betrayal of him she leaves him. His best friend Donald (Steven Weber) appropriates his possible second choice (Samantha Soule), his egotistical novelist friend (Jonathan Cake) has betrayed him with Celia and his world is crumbling around him. What to do?
   As he puts it “I don’t even have the courage of my lack of conviction.” Direction is by David Grindley who really should have increased the pacing which is too slow and laborious. Set design by Tim Shortall and costumes by Tobin Ost are interesting and applicable. With all this talent this show should have more punch.

Exit The King
Eugene Ionesco’s 1962 absurdist play remains as absurd and as relevant as it originally was. This current Australian production which has been co-adapted by Neil Armfield and Geoffrey Rush is directed by the former and stars the latter. It is farcial and funny but the essential tragedy remains intact. We are all going to die, like it or not, and the manner of the life led by the individual makes no difference at the end.
   Here we have King Berenger, a man who has lived at least 400 years, whose kingdom is in ruins, whose palace is deterionated, whose populace has been decimated, whose only concern is his own narcissism protesting that he is not ready to die. He needs more time. He will do better next time. He has to prepare. Perhaps another century will do. But no! His ex-wife Queen Marguerite (Susan Sarandon) informs him he has 90 minutes left. His current second wife Queen Marie (Lauren Ambrose) weeps, bewails, but proclaims her love will save him. His only remaining servant Juliette (Andrea Martin in a hilarious performance) rushes about fixing his train, dusting the cobwebs, milking the cow, bemoaning her lost washing machine which has been pawned for a state loan (updated to a treasury bailout) but to no avail. The guard (Brian Hutchison) continues to make pronouncements but he too can not stop the King's deterioration. And finally the doctor (William Sadler) abandons his patient to his fate. In her cool deliberate fashion Queen Marguerite relieves our King of his burdens, his senses, his being.
   Geoffrey Rush is a fascinating clown, Susan Sarandon is superb and all the others do well by their tasks. The set by Dale Ferguson is admirably delapidated, sound by Russell Goldsmith is awesome and the music by John Rodgers is dolorously performed by trumpeteers Shane Edsley and Scott Harrell.

Joe Turner’s Come And Gone
This revival of the second of August Wilson’s 10 play century cycle masterpiece depicting the Black experience in America during the 20th Century is a sizzling drama.
   Set in Pittsburgh in 1911 in the boarding house of Seth (Ernie Hudson) and Bertha Holly (Latanya Richardson Jackson) the play delineates the lives of the freed African slaves as they wander in and out of the setting looking for their place in this new scheme of things. Most of the characters are transients, each with their own desperation, lost and searching for different solutions, basically each looking for an end to their isolation. There is Herald Loomis (Chad L. Coleman) and his 11-year old daughter (Amari Rose Leigh) looking for his lost wife Martha (Danai Gurira). They are suffering as a result of Herald’s seven-year imprisonment by Joe Turner who plucked him off the street onto a chain gang, disrupting his life and separating him from his wife and child.
   There is Mattie Campbell (Marsha Stephanie Blake) searching for the father of her dead babies who has walked out on her. There is Molly Cunningham (Aunjanue Ellis) searching for anything to get her through the night. And ditto for Jeremy Furlow (Andre Holland) who just needs a strong woman to hold onto. The stable people in this constant whirlpool are Bynum Walker (Roger Robinson) a rootworker who specializes in charms, spells and hoodoo (not voodo!) to help people “bind” to another by finding their own personal song. And Rutherford Selig (Arliss Howard) a white peddler who also “finds” lost souls as well as Reuben Scott (Michael Cummings) the boy next door who brightens Zonia’s day.
   All of this activity is compelling and moving as each actor does a splendid job in bringing August Wilson's words into being. Michael Yeargan is responsible for the minimalist and moving setting, Brian MacDevitt the startling lighting, Catherine Zuber the effective costumes and Taj Mahal the appropriate music. Directed by Bartlett Sher, a white man, who has grasped the African-American experience with great skill and insight.

9 To 5
Dolly Parton (music and lyrics) and Patricia Resnick (book) have collaborated in turning their 1980 hit movie into a very enjoyable musical production. They have stuck to the time period and the essential theme of the play—the mistreatment of women in the work place and as Jane Fonda states in her program note Dolly’s song “9 to 5” became the anthem for a national organization for women office workers called 9 to 5. In brief the three protagonists, Violet (Allison Janney in the Lily Tomlin movie role), Doralee (Megan Hilty in the Dolly Parton role) and Judy (Stephanie J. Block in the Jane Fonda role) all work in an office run by a bigoted obtrusive sexist boss Franklin Hart, Jr. (Marc Kudisch). Violet is the office manager who is never promoted, Doralee the blond bombshell who Hart is constantly leching after and Judy is the new divorcee in her first job trying to break her dependency on her former husband who left her for a younger woman. When Violet mistakenly thinks she has poisoned the boss all three kidnap him and hold him hostage until they can blackmail him into silence.
   This thumbnail sketch does not do justice to the songs and dances exuberantly staged as each woman has her own exposition and dream sequence. Allison Janney is outstanding in “One of the Boys,” Megan Hilty rocks in “Backwoods Barbie” and ”Cowgirl’s Revenge” and Stephanie J. Block belts out “Get Out and Stay Out” to her former husband—with all the vigor she has acquired in her new found strength. Marc Kudisch is hilarious and gives his all to this role winding up flying in the air and finally meeting his comeuppance. Scott Pask has created an exiting scenic design, William Ivey Long does his usual excellent job with the costumes and Joe Mantello has directed with energy and pizazz.

Mary Stuart
The Donmar Warehouse production of Freidrich Schiller’s play in a new version by Peter Oswald arrived on Broadway with its two powerhouse stars in all their glory. Janet McTeer (Mary Stuart) is all fire and passion as the imprisoned Queen of Scots while Harriet Walter as Elizabeth I is icy cold as the reigning monarch who is threatened by Mary’s claim to the throne of England. But in reality both women have their strengths and weaknesses and both are power driven, often malevolent, people. Mary has helped murder her husband, has married the murderer, has had countless affairs in which she manipulated her lovers and is now, in concert with the Pope, striving to regain the English throne and revert the nation to Catholicism. Elizabeth I, defending the Protestant throne has a shaky claim having been declared a bastard by her father Henry VIII after his execution of her mother Anne Boyelin. She is a manueverer who plays people off against each other, whose court is full of deception, duplicity and greed as each man involved is so invested in his own egoism that nothing matters but his personal narsissistic goal. Elizabeth is quite capable of having Mary beheaded as long as she can blame someone else for this deed. Indeed the entire mileu of this play is so sadistic that one can not help but feel a pox on both your houses. Yet Elizabeth I reigned over many mgnificent decades in England and was responsible for many glories of the British Empire and that determination shows in Miss Walter's demeanor.
   John Benjamin Hickey does a superb job in portraying the wily Earl of Leicester whose betrayal of both women is a lesson in immorality while Brian Murray is a sympathetic Earl of Shrewsbury whose integrity is unquestionable. Nicholas Woodeson, Michael Countryman and Robert Stanton are equally effective in their roles and Maria Tucci does a good job as Mary’s loyal nurse. The costumes of Anthony Ward supply an original interpretation as the men are all in modern dress while the women are in Elizabethean clothes perhaps suggesting the uniformity of timeless politicians—all interchangeable facades.
   Phyllida Lloyd has directed an unusual and brilliant production. The confrontation between Mary and Elizabeth, although fictional, is a taut capsule view of the entire situation—moving, distressing and disturbing as is the entire play.

33 Variations
Moises Kaufman should be congratulated for several good reasons: One—he has written an original and provocative play, Two—he has engineered the return to the theater of the gifted Jane Fonda after an absence of 46 years and Three—he gives the audience the opportunity to hear the glorious music of Beethoven as played by pianist Diane Walsh.
   The story takes place in several dimensions ie: the years l819, l823 and the present and the locations New York, Bonn and Vienna which all shift back and forth as the cleverly designed stage allows for simultaneous action. In brief, a noted musicologist Dr. Katherine Brandt (Jane Fonda), just diagnosed with Lou Gehrig”s disease, is determined to finish her research on Beethoven’s 33 variations on a simple waltz composed by his music publisher Anton Diabelli (Don Amendolia) before her inevitable demise. Why 33 variations on such a simple tune? She is also trying to mediate her brittle relationship with her daughter Clara (Samantha Mathis). She is determined to go to the original source of her material—the archives in Bonn, Gemany—despite her daughter’s fears for her health.
    In Bonn she finds the archivest Dr. Gertrude Ladenburger (Susan Kellermann) who becomes her best friend and supporter as her physical deterioration increases. She also finds Beethoven (Zach Grenier), his servant Anton Schindler (Erik Steele) and his music publisher who started the whole project by challenging the musical composers of the day to submit variations on his simple melody. At the same time her daughter and her boyfriend Mike (Colin Hanks—yes he’s Tom Hanks’ son) who is also Katherine’s former nurse arrive in Bonn to try to alleviate her pain and arrive at some reconciliation between mother and daughter. Whew! Yes, its a chock o block plot and riveting as well. Jane Fonda is at her best! Beautiful, competent, in complete control of her art. It’s a pleasure to welcome her back to Broadway.

Guys And Dolls
This 1950 classic musical has been revived countless times winning many awards and accolades. The music by Frank Loesser is endearingly beautiful and catchy, the book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows is a comic and original adaptation of Damon Runyon’s wiseguy characters of a long ago Broadway era. This version adds another dimension with the video projections of Dustin O’Neill who places various Manhattan locales, such as the Mission, the subways, the nite club, Broadway scenes and even Havana on the back curtain as the various sets roll by. This manuever opens up the action but also distances the players thus providing a mixed blessing to the staging.
   As for the cast—Lauren Graham ia an adorable Adelaide lamenting her 14 year long engagement to Nathan Detroit (Oliver Platt) who is too busy running a crap game to take time out to get married. Kate Jennings Grant is a stiff necked Salvation Army gal (Sister Sarah Brown) who rejects cynical gambler Sky Masterson (Craig Bierko) until she has one alcoholic drink too many—and then a beautiful rendition of “I’ve Never Been In Love Before” reveals their true feelings. Tituss Burgess as Nicely-Nicely Johnson does a rolicking “Sit Down, You’re Rocking The Boat” but Mary Testa as a Salvation Army General outdoes the whole company with her spirited performance in that number. All the rest of the cast give admiral performances and the show, if not the very best rendition of this wonderful musical, is certainly a creditable and enjoyable version.

God Of Carnage
Two couples meet in the elegant apartment of one of them to discuss the fallout from their 11-year old son’s contretemps. It seems Benjamin, son of Alan (Jeff Daniels) and Annette (Hope Davis) has struck Henry, son of Richard (James Gandolfine) and Veronica (Marcia Gay Harden) causing him to lose two teeth. At first the four are polite and hospitable, agreeing this was an accident certainly not worthy of a law suit. Michael and Annette serve coffee and dessert, the house is spruced up with tulips, art books are everywhere. Then slowly but surely the veneer of civility splits open.
    It seems Benjamin was reacting to being excluded from a game and is really not to blame according to his parents. It also seems Alan, a lawyer, is too busy on his cell phone to pay any attention to this matter. Annette apparently reacting to her pent up rage at his disinterest, as well as the unknown dessert, begins to puke all over Veronica’s art books. Michael brings out the rum, everyone gets drunk, Michael is called a killer by Annette for putting his son’s hampster out on the street, Veronica erupts at Michael for not giving her another drink, Annette throws Alan’s cell phone into a vase of tulips therby ruining it, Alan loses his cool demeanor and retreats to infantility and so it goes with everyone disintegrating into primitive behavior. All this might sound ridiculous but in the hands of our four excellent protagonists it is hilariously funny.
    Yasmina Reza deights in poking fun at middle and upper class morality and she succeeds in writing a comedy that entertains mightily. Mark Thompson provides the elegant set and Matthew Warchus directs.

Reasons To Be Pretty
Neil LaBute’s play has been softened and shortened in the move from downtown to Broadway. It still remains abrasive and disturbing as it defines relationships between two couples—the males immature and undeveloped, the women insecure and uncertain. It opens with a screaming confrontation between Greg (Thomas Sadoski) and Steph (Marin Ireland) because Carly (Piper Perabo) has overheard and reported a conversation between her husband Kent (Steven Pasquale) and Greg where Greg has implied that Steph is ugly. This is enough for Steph to end their four year relationship despite Greg’s insistence that it was a statement of love for a girl with a “regular” face. But of course this is but an excuse for terminating a relationship that is going nowhere.
    For Greg, a college dropout, who works the night shift in a factory, reads Poe and Hawthorne, but somehow is stuck in a passive attitude toward life, never developing past a childish stance. His relationship with Kent who is a macho, bravado contemptible person who cheats on his wife Carly with the pretty coworker at the plant is equally dependant with Greg covering for his friend's escapades by lying to his wife. The breakup with Steph leads Greg to begin to examine his life. Can he be what Steph wants? Can he grow up? All the actors are excellent. Terry Kinney directs with a sure, quick hand and David Gallo’s sets portray the blue collar background with deftness and accuracy.

Impressionism
Impressionism is a delightful romantic play with touches of comedy and sadness as well as the most beautiful of scenic and projection designs. The stage curtains, as well as the paintings in the art gallery owned by Katharine Keenan (Joan Allen) are the best of those made famous by Renoir, Utrillo, Matisse, Modigliani, Chagall and Degas—to name but a few. The gallery also features the work of photojournalist Thomas Buckle (Jeremy Irons) who, as a war-weary and haunted man, is a realist who constantly tries to pull Katharine into front and center rather than allow her to stand back to see all angles of the painting—and life. She views everything from a distance, her interpretations being based on her own feelings of abandonment from early childhood. She is totally unable to part from these paintings while he insists on selling them to the customers who want to make a purchase. Of course this combination sparks fireworks as one of them has to relent.
    Marsha Mason is a lively customer, Michael T, Weiss a smooth one and Andre de Shields a home-bred philosopher but Joan Allen and Jeremy Irons, who play several roles apiece in memory scenes and current ones, run with the show and are superb. Scott Pask and Elaine J. McCarthy are responsible for the gorgeous settings while Jack O’Brien does a credible job with Michael Jacob's script. Go see!

Irena’s Vow
Irena Gut was a young Catholic Polish girl when the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939. She was exposed to their final solution to the Jewish problem when she inadvertently witnessed a Nazi soldier killing a mother and her baby along with other hapless Jewish people. Unable to help them she resolved to take whatever action she could to prevent future distruction and to that end she hid 12 Jews in the basement of a high ranking German officer's home where she worked as his housekeeper. This play recounts the harrowing events of that era. Eventually her actions were rewarded in 1982 by the Israeli Holocaust Commission who named her a Righteous Among Nations and presented her with the Israel Medal of Honor.
    Tovah Feldshuh is nothing short of magnificent as Irena. She scuttles back and forth between being the obedient servant of the German officer Major Rugemer (Thomas Ryan) and the audacious schemer who keeps her captives safe and well fed. There are many near escapes and when the German officer does discover her secret he agrees to keep it only if she becomes his mistress. More problems—and finally the day of the Nazi retreat in 1945 and the successful flight of the Jews first into the underground, then to Israel.
    The entire cast is competent, riveting and compelling. Of course the subject matter is so overwhelming that no one can resist it. To add to the evening, at the conclusion of the play Irena’s real daughter and her “son” born to one of her charges in captivity take the stage to answer questions from the audience. A very emotional evening indeed! Dan Gordon is to be congratulated for his extremely moving play.

Blithe Spirit
Noel Coward’s 1941 frothy and funny play is being revived with a stellar cast—among them the inimitable Angela Lansbury who makes the nutty medium Madame Arcati even more ludicrous than Coward imagined. She dances, she whirls, she expresses exasperation with a look, she is zany beyond belief. As a practicing medium she has been invited to dinner by Charles (Rupert Everett) and Ruth his second wife (Jayne Atkinson) to demonstrate a seance. Charles, a writer, wants to observe the mechanics of the spiritual hocus-pocus for his new book and has no intention of taking the process seriously. But lo and behold an apparation appears! His deceased first wife, seen only by him, comes dancing out of the garden ready to upset his orderly life. The effervescent Elvira (Christine Ebersole) proceeds to demonstrate her tricks, Ruth is reduced to sputtering rage at what she perceives to be her husband’s drunken behavior, their guests Dr. and Mrs. Bradman (Simon Jones and Deborah Rush) are baffled and the maid Edith (Susan Louise O'Connor) is even more agitated than usual. Hilarity and confusion ensue and when Charles tries to get Madame Arcati to return Elvira to wherever she came from, she confesses she has no idea how to perform the return process.
   Scenery by Peter J. Davison, costumes by Martin Pakledinaz, direction by Michael Blakemore and songs by Irving Berlin sung by Christine Ebersole during set changes. The actors are all wonderful in various stages of bewilderment and outrage and Angela Lansbury reins supreme.

Billy Elliot: The Musical
Elton John's musical version of Lee Hall's film about an 11-year old coal miner's son named Billy who loves to dance comes to Broadway after a long run in London. It was a success there and it will be a success here. It is a beautiful production directed by Stephen Daldry, choreographed by Peter Darling, enhanced by a slew of adorable children and led by three young lads alternating as Billy. I saw Trent Kowalik who was superb particularly in one scene where he danced with his imagined adult alter ego (Stephen Hanna) to the Swan Lake music of Tchaikovsky. He literally flew to the ceiling and across the stage in a thrilling rendition.
   The story takes place during the 1984 strike of the British Labor Union of Mine workers who attempted to stop Magaret Thatcher's determination to close down the mines. The son (Billy) of one of the striking workers (Gregory Jbara) discovers that he hates boxing but loves ballet dancing when he stumbles accidently into a class taught by Mrs. Wilkinson (Haydn Gwynne). His father and brother (Santino Fontana), as well as the striking miners, berate him for this effiminate choice and prevent him from attending an audition at the Royal Ballet. His grandmother (Carole Shelley) and imagined deceased mother (Leah Hocking) offer encouragement and finally although the miners lose the strike they all pitch in to help Billy achieve his goal.
   All the performers are excellent, children included. Frank Dolce who played Billy's wise cracking, cross dressing friend was particlarly appealing but everyone has a hand in making this an enchanting evening. Elton John's music fits like a glove, particularly in the sequence entitled “Angry Dance,” but, in general, throughout the play.