A Star is Born

TRAINED IN TAMPA, HE’S NOW ‘BILLY ELLIOT’

Ethan Fuller got his big break on Interstate 4.

“They called us when we were driving home from Tampa to Indialantic on I-4,” says Camille Fuller , mother of Ethan, 12.

Ethan had been cast to play the leading role in Billy Elliot on tour.

“It’s the opportunity of a lifetime,” his mom says.

Ethan is now in New York, where he is undergoing the intensive training needed to play Billy, probably the biggest part for a child actor in musical theater since Annie . The actor is onstage for virtually the entire three-hour show.

“It’s definitely hard, because you have to do everything,” Ethan says. “You have to do ballet, tap, acro (acrobatics), sing, act, and you have to look like you’re not tired at all. And I have to pick up a British accent.”

The role of Billy is so demanding that four young actors rotate in performances on the national tour, now playing at the Straz Center for the Performing Arts in Tampa. The musical, with a score by Elton John , is about a boy in an English coal-mining community who has to overcome his working-class family’s objections to follow his dream of being a ballet dancer.

Dance runs in the Fuller family. Ethan’s older brother, Collin , 17, is a student at the School of American Ballet in New York. Both young Fullers received ballet training in Florida from Peter Stark , dance chair of the Patel Conservatory, part of the Straz Center.

“Ethan is a hybrid dancer,” Stark says. “He has been studying ballet, but also contemporary dance, so he’s sort of a ballet-jazz kid. Ethan loves ballet, and he is really good at it, and I think he can transition into a Broadway show and then back into ballet if he wants.”

Billy Elliot plays here in Tampa until this Sunday, Feb. 20th. For tickets, click HERE.