Billy Elliot the Musical (BETM) returns to Pilsen for a fifth season, starting on September 9, 2023. Tickets have beeb on sale for performances until April 14, 2024, when it has been announced that the long run of BETM there will come to a close.
Billy Elliot the Musical (BETM) was first presented on the New Stage DJKT (Divadlo J. K. Tyla) in Pilsen in the Czech Republic with a planned run from May 11, 2019 to May 6, 2020. Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, all performances of BETM in Pilsen that were scheduled for March 2020 onwards during that first season were cancelled.
BETM then returned to Pilsen for a second season, with performances scheduled from September 4 to December 13, 2020. Sadly, once again, the season was cut short due to COVID-19 restrictions being reintroduced. The last performance of the second season was on September 5, 2020.
The production returned once again for a third season — Jun 1, 2021 to Jun 19, 2022 — and subsequently for a fourth season — Sep 25, 2022 to May 13, 2023.
It returned to Pilsen for a fifth and final season, starting on September 9, 2023 and ending on April 14, 2024, almost five years after the first performance back in 2019.
DJKT performs across three stages in Pilsen, with their four artistic ensembles producing around 500 drama, opera, operetta, musical and ballet performances annually. The oldest of these stage is the JK Tyl Theatre, which was completed in 1902. Work on a second building for the company to perform in began in June 2012, and was completed in September 2014. This houses the New Stage, a 444-seat theatre, which is where BETM is performed, and a 120-seat studio theatre, known as the Little Scene.
In order to get a licence to perform BETM, the Czech theatre had to go through a rigorous process in order to persuade the licensing agency that they would be able to produce a production to a high standard. This included giving them details of previous productions performed at the DJKT and the audience reactions to these shows, and who the team of people that would create BETM there would be. In the later stages of the process they had to get the Czech translation of the script and songs approved, alongside the stage designs, costumes and cast. Finally they were given the go ahead and were granted permission to mount a production.
The search began in 2018 to find actors to lead the cast in the role of Billy. After a long search with many rounds of auditions, two boys were chosen to share the role. They were Šimon Fikar and Miloslav Frýdl.
In the days leading up to the opening of the production a press conference was held to promote the show, during which the Billys sang ‘Electricity’ and were then joined by the Michaels to perform ‘Express Yourself’. Here is a video with excerpts from these performances:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=PTvQ2Pjw6vc
Credit: Video by musicalcz
In June 2020, it was announced that two new Billys had been found to take over the lead role from the original Billys. The second set of Czech Billys were Ondřej Kapusta and Ondřej Tolar. The two original Billys performed for the last time in September 2020.
As all performances of BETM were put on hold due to the pandemic, the new Billys had a longer than expected delay before beginning performances. Theatres were finally allowed to reopen at the end of May in the Czech Republic and both Ondřej Kapusta and Ondřej Tolar were able to debut at the beginning of June.
In January 2023 it was announced that there would be another cast change, with the two young leads hanging up their ballet shoes. To take their place were two new Billys – Petr Batěk Jr. and Robin Beneš, who both performed for the first time in February 2023.
On the day of the final two performances of the production in April 2024, all six Billys and five Michaels returned to share the stage one final time. Some clips from these special performance can be seen below.
Firstly, the afternoon performance with Petr Batěk Jr. as Billy:
And then the evening performance with Robin Beneš as Billy:
To learn more about the Pilsen Billys, click on the Billy Profiles button (below) to be taken to their detailed profiles.
To see a complete listing of the rest of the Pilsen cast, just click on the Cast Information button.
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