What happens when your dream comes true before sixth grade starts? You find yourself juggling eight shows per week, plus a full-time school schedule starting next month.
When Hoboken’s Maddy Novak, 11, landed a role in the multiple award-winning Broadway show “Billy Elliot The Musical,” her dreams came true. She was cast this summer as a replacement for one of the “Ballet Girls.”
“It was my favorite show,” she said last week about the tale of an English boy who trades in his boxing gloves for ballet shoes.
The first time she stepped out onto the stage of the Imperial Theatre on West 45th Street, she was a bit nervous.
“At first, I had a lot of mistakes,” Novak said, “but now there’s not much.”
Big show
The renowned Broadway theatre seats 1,417 people. The show has a large cast and crew.
“There’s a lot of people on stage and it’s kind of crowded,” Maddy said. “And there’s no empty seats.”
She added, “The two big numbers that I’m in are long and tiring. But being in this show that’s won all these Tonys and Best Musical of the Year…It’s great!”
It wasn’t a fluke that she won the part; she was ready for the opportunity. She had auditioned for a part in the original cast two years ago.
“That it happened when I was 11, that’s awesome.” – Maddy Novak
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This time? “I was pretty confident,” she said. “We rehearse a lot in dance school.”
It was perhaps fitting that when Jane Novak, Maddy’s mother, got the call from the casting director, Maddy was at dance class. When she called her daughter, “I couldn’t believe it,” Maddy recalled. “I thought it was just another callback.”
Practice makes perfect
She has trained in dance since she was 4 years old, and taken piano lessons. At J & L Dance in North Bergen, and later at the Monroe Center for the Arts in Hoboken, Maddy spent time learning a whole range of disciplines: jazz, hip-hop, ballet, flamenco, tap, and acrobatic dance.
“[Flamenco] is my favorite,” she admits. Kind of like tap, she said, but instead of taps on the shoes, flamenco has nails. “I like Spanish dancing.”
She received the Showmanship Award from the Dance Educators of America in January and the Junior Miss Access Broadway title in Atlantic City. She has acted in the Hoboken Children’s Theatre since it opened five years ago, including roles in “Music Man” and “Fiddler on the Roof.”
“The other kids in my school would be hanging out when I’m at dance class,” she said somewhat remorsefully. “But I really like doing this.”
Dreams come true
“I always wanted to be on Broadway,” she said. “I thought it was going to happen when I was older, or not even happen. That it happened when I was 11, that’s awesome.”
So has she moved the goalposts now?
“I’ll continue to do this,” she said. “Maybe I’ll get into movies.”
In the more immediate future, Novak will return to the Stevens Cooperative School, 301 Garden St. Unlike many of her co-stars, Novak is not homeschooled.
“Being up so late [for shows] isn’t the problem,” she said. “Getting up in the morning is.”
Timothy J. Carroll may be reached at tcarroll@hudsonreporter.com.