Chicago Tribune

Porchlight's Chicago cast of 'Billy Elliot' surely will win you over

Chris Jones

"The Porchlight Music Theatre production of “Billy Elliot,” through which I sat Sunday night with misty eyes, is to a great extent what I always hoped this piece would become in Chicago: not some massively budgeted musical with dazzling performances but kind, honest, authentically working-class, affordable, of the community...Lincoln Seymour (who shares the role of Billy with Jacob Kaiser) is utterly credible as a kid who misses his mum and knows not what to do; young Seymour’s voice is close to breaking, which adds to the richness of his work. He shows us Billy’s struggles in all their complexity and thus we invest in his success. Which is what matters the most."