"Graduation Day" by Kate Henning | Billy Elliot Blog

This is a blog post by the actress who currently plays Mrs. Wilkinson (the dance teacher) in “Billy Elliot”. I have seen four different women play this role in two different countries, and she did a fine job in impressing me — which is hard to do now since I’ve seen the show 12 times.

Trent’s final show was Sunday night, and she had such nice things to say about it. Also, she’s right. That kid is TALLER than me now and he kicked the crap out of “Angry Dance” that night.

I remember picking him up after rehearsal in a rain storm from hell before the show opened for previews in New York. The Creatives had totally retooled this scene from the London production. The scene that made me shout across a British theatre, “Your son was fucking made to do this” at intermission to his parents in 2007.

Trent and I sat next to each other, soaked, on the train. He had his monthly pass in his kid-wallet as if he were a seasoned 20-year-vet of the railroad. He was pouring over a book with rehearsal notes in it. He had written out, verbatim, the choreography to this number. Step for step. Sound for sound. And then recited it, outloud from memory.