What's up, guys? Leslie Robbins here, once again at the Pantages Theater, and we are behind the scenes of Billy Elliot the Musical.

All right, Cat, take me into the dressing room.

Come on in. This is where we hide out during the show and before the show.

Cat, thank you for having us in your dressing room. I love actually being here. It makes me feel special.

Well, thank you for coming in. I don't often have visitors in my dressing room, so it's fun.

And I have to say you're legit because you have the Billy Elliot backstage pass with your name on it on a necklace chain.

Yeah, I'm fancy like that. I like to class it up a little.

So you play Billy's mother. There's not just one Billy, there are four.

Yeah, there's four little boys um that are the apple of my eye, my little babies, um who rotate the role from night to night and they're just stellar performers and um incredible each individual in their own right. I have a pre-show ritual with every Billy, no matter who is on. I always grab them in for a big mama bear hug and I won't let them go even when they pull away. And so, and they are so sweet indulging.

You nailed the accent. How did you get it?

You know, there's an a dialect coach that we worked with. In the audition process, I hadn't worked with the dialect coach yet. So, in retrospect, that was probably pretty embarrassing because what we're doing is a Geordie accent and it's really, really specific. It's not just uh your standard British or Cockney or the ones that everybody's used to hearing. It's really, really specific.

Give me a little a little bit of it.

Um, let's see. Oh, little one, what have I told you about drinking out of the bottle?

Do you find yourself in everyday conversation ordering Starbucks and using the accent by accident?

Not at Starbucks, but it's definitely comes out especially when I'm around other cast members, we start goofing around and we immediately switch into Geordie.

So tell me, what's the process? How long does it take you to get ready for a show?

Um, well, we have a 30-minute call before the show and I usually get here about 5 minutes before that. Um, get my hair into pin curls, makeup. Uh, and actually makeup for me means toning down my makeup because this is what I wear during the day and this is too much for my character on stage. So, lipstick goes off, makeup gets dulled down a little bit. And that. And then I get into my costume, get my wig on, and I head out and clumsily make my entrance.

Okay, we're back in the wig room. Um, Mrs. Wilkinsons are here and somewhere, where are mine? Mine are hiding somewhere. Oh, they're out already. So, those are my some of my wigs.

Billy Elliot has the most inspiring message, I think.

Yeah, I completely agree. Um, the show is just so inspiring about overcoming odds, obstacles and people who might get in your way and tell you um that you can't achieve or you can't do something that you feel a passion and a drive to do. And I think that's what's so special about being a performer performing in a show that is about that because we've all been there and we've all taken that journey and we've all had people tell us that we shouldn't do it, we couldn't do it, we aren't good enough, we aren't pretty enough, we aren't skinny enough, we aren't the best singer, we aren't the best actor. I mean, every kind of criticism that you could think of has come our way and I think to hear night after night a story of a boy who's been told all those things and then does it anyways. And has an advocate in his corner that pulls him through, and a family that finally comes full circle. You know, which I think for a lot of people when they meet family resistance, that can be the hardest of it all. Um, and I think it's important for us to acknowledge that sometimes families come around and you just have to kind of push through and do what you know you're you're meant to do. Um, and just, you know, keep faith that your family will understand at some point when they see it making you happy and fulfilling you.

And Elton John is behind the music. It's pretty powerful.

Yeah, it's ridiculous. I get to do a show with this music that this who's an icon to me, someone I listen to growing up, and some of the first shows I did, I worked on cruise ships and I got to sing like, you know, just Crocodile Rock and like all these such songs that I just had so much fun doing, you know, early in my career and then to be able to be here and come full circle and sing this incredible music every night. Hey. Finish.

So, this is actually really cool. Tell me what this is.

This is our vocal booth. So, we sing some of our vocals off stage because Elton John wanted to create sort of a studio sound when the show was created. Um, so specifically in Shine, when Mrs. Wilkinson is getting down and groovy, we're back here supporting her vocally. So, there's three women during that song, and then during some other songs, some other people sing as well. Um, and so we have two monitors in there, one where we can see the conductor, the other where we can see what's happening on stage. Our microphones here and we can adjust all our controls in each of our headphones and then of course our music from the show that we glance at occasionally, but we know it by heart.

And yes, you did name drop and say Elton John wanted it this way. Dah. Obviously.

So, we're going to come over here and this is a fun little piece that we have. First of all, back here. Tutus. But these are men's tutus. Shh. It's a secret. I can't tell you when they're worn or what they're for. But they're large and in charge. So, this is the cannon that George comes out in during the Christmas scene. And if you take a close look at the details, some of my favorite little pieces are these little wheels and they're made out of like Tupperware lids. And then if you look under there, it's newspaper and different little things. So, and these are um are coasters from different bars. And I think it's just so cool cuz it's supposed to be a homemade uh cannon and it really is homemade like it's everything that someone in that village could have made it with. That's damn. One of my favorite things this is props. And about I don't know the percentage of it, but there's a good portion of our show that are edible props. That's one of my favorite things. So, we have little animal crackers here, little potato chips. These are Skittles, there's whipped cream. Yeah, so there's a plethora of edible props and drinkable props. So, this is the gondola area and there is some dressing like quick change spaces for the men there. For the women, we hang out here and there's a room on the other side for the ballet girls that we call the tutu room.

Tutu.

For the tutu, cuz they quick change their tutus. So, this is the quick change room for the women. So, you can see it's tight quarters even a bit in a big theater like this. Each of the women's costumes are divided. I know, these are the tutus and they sparkle and so they're full corsets with a tutu on it. And then we wear these cute little ruffle panties underneath. Let me grab a pair. Like this.

Now we're talking. Like this. The reason to be in Billy Elliot.

Exactly. Done.