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Young boy shines as “Billy”

A 10-year-old boy whose personality is known to fill a room has no problem capturing the attention of thousands in a 2,000 plus-seat theatre.
Dex Drewitz1
Dex Drewitz is young Billy Elliot in Theatre Calgary’s Billy Elliot the Musical, which is in the Max Bell Theatre Tuesdays to Saturdays until May 12.

A 10-year-old boy whose personality is known to fill a room has no problem capturing the attention of thousands in a 2,000 plus-seat theatre.

Percy Pegler School Grade 5 student Dex Drewitz is playing goal-driven dreamer Billy Elliot in the Tony Award-winning Billy Elliot the Musical with Theatre Calgary. Performances take place Tuesdays to Sundays until May 12 at the Max Bell Centre.

Drewitz, who’s been singing and dancing since before he could read, said playing Billy Elliot is like a dream come true.

“This experience is way beyond anything I’ve done before,” he said. “I really like Theatre Calgary because it’s really professional. You feel good because people are paying money to come watch you.”

Billy Elliot is the first lead role for Drewitz, who played Tiny Tim in Theatre Calgary’s A Christmas Carol in 2016 and was in several small productions through his family’s dance studio Drewitz Dance Productions in Calgary.

Drewitz was the perfect fit for young Billy, according to Susan McNair Reid, Theatre Calgary’s company manager. Theatre Calgary puts on six shows a season.

“He’s an energetic young man full of personality,” she said of Drewitz. “Often kids his age are unable to be themselves on stage, they either try too hard to be what they think acting is or they just freeze up, but he can just be himself on stage. He’s kind of like Billy, he’s a feisty little guy.”

McNair Reid was awestruck by Drewitz’ dance abilities during his audition.

“We were wowed,” she said. “We brought him back for the acting and it’s like, ‘you’re Billy.’”

With Drewitz’s experience as Tiny Tim two years previous, McNair Reid said she knew he’d be able to carry a show.

“He was able to shine in all the different aspects,” she said. “He’s just exuberant.”

Drewitz said he began dancing at age three, singing in preschool and training in musical theatre at age five.

“Everybody in my family has at least done dancing,” he said. “I just fell into dance. It started with me dancing around the kitchen.”

Drewitz’s older sister, Roxy, has an extensive background in the performing arts. She was in Storybook Theatre’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat last fall.

Her younger brother is following in her footsteps.

“This is my really first big role to experience harder and difficult dance steps and learning all those lines,” he said. “Once you just learn the lines it’s easier and you just flow through the story. I memorized all my lines before I even started the musical because the other Billy’s like 14 so I wanted to get ahead.”

Set in working-class England, Billy Elliot tells the story of a young boy who dreams of trading in his boxing gloves for ballet slippers, while his widowed father struggles to understand his son’s passion for dance.

Drewitz said that although Billy’s dad enrolled him in a boxing class, Billy ended up walking into a ballet class instead.

“He liked the dance class so he came another day,” he said, adding Billy uses the money his dad gave him for boxing lessons to pay for ballet. “Billy was banned (by his dad) but he didn’t care so he still came back and followed his dreams and kept on going.”

As young Billy, Drewitz does plenty of singing, dancing and has pages of lines.

This meant missing about a month of school and the playoffs with the Okotoks Oilers Tier 1 Atom team. Drewitz advances to peewee next season.

“I had to miss a little bit of hockey playoffs, but at least our team won the banner,” he said. “It would have been such a fun experience if I would have been there.”

As for missing school, Drewitz has it all under control.

“I was doing really good in school so I only had to catch up on math and big assignments,” he said. “I will still work hard in school to get a good education so I can get into university and stuff like that.”

Drewitz’s experience on stage for opening night on April 12 made all of his hard work worthwhile.

“It was really cool to see how much people were clapping,” he said. “Everybody was standing up clapping from the start of the bows to the end.”

For more details about the show or to purchase tickets go to theatrecalgary.com

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