Stephen Daldry juggles stage, screen efforts

If anyone has seen way too much of these choreographed mega-costumes, it would be Stephen Daldry, the British director behind both the popular movie and the hit musical that's finally made its way to Broadway.

For three years and more than 1,400 performances, Daldry's staged version about a boy who has to dance no matter what his family thinks has been playing to full auditoriums in London. A year ago, he took the musical (with book and lyrics by the film's screenwriter, Lee Hall, and music by Elton John) to Sydney. On Nov. 13, "Billy Elliot: The Musical" opened in New York's Imperial Theater, and one more staging is scheduled to debut in Melbourne later this year.

As Daldry watched a rehearsal of the fantasy dress sequence a few days ahead of his Broadway opening, it was clear he still hadn't reached his limit. "Looks great," he told his dancers, before huddling with his creative team. The show is essentially the same version that is playing in England, with some minor tweaks. As in the film, the musical's backdrop is the British miners' strike of 1984, prompted by the threatened denationalization of coal production by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

"The perception of Margaret Thatcher here is that she was a friend of Ronald Reagan," Daldry said of many Americans' limited understanding of how anti-union Thatcher and her Conservative government were. "Whereas the perception of her is very different in the United Kingdom. Everybody I know thinks of her as a big bad wolf."

So Daldry and his team added an extra minute of documentary-style film at the musical's opening, and inserted a one-page history of the strike into the show's Playbill. Said Eric Fellner, whose Working Title Films is a producer of both the movie and the musical: "It's more information, a way for the audience to get in."

Ticket sales for "Billy Elliot: The Musical" have been strong, but opening night reviews were mixed. Times critic Charles McNulty said, "The cast never coalesces into a believable North England family." reviewsreviewsAmerican moviegoers were more broadly favorable when Daldry's debut movie arrived in 2000.