Another Nutcracker nearer the grave

What you see on stage is difficult enough, but often what you don't see is also challenging. The hardest part of my role is not the dancing or the acting but occurs later, during the battle scene. I and another "parent" hide in the back of the enormous clock instead of exiting offstage after the party, and at our cue we haul the clock offstage quickly and quietly. The challenge is to do so without being seen by the audience and without smashing the stage lights or squashing any mice.

Still, Brian and I have it easier than one of the dancers. Noah is both the Mouse King in the battle and the cavalier in the snow scene, and he has exactly two minutes to completely change his costume, tights included.

*****

Little boys do not need encouragement to misbehave.

*****

Steven may have sat on Sophia Loren's lap, but Lauren Anderson tugged my ponytail this evening.

*****

The party scene boys played some peculiar variations on "rock, paper, scissors" while waiting to go on stage. One was "rock, paper, scissors, dynamite." "Dynamite" is a closed fist with the thumb extended upward. Scissors can cut the fuse, but otherwise it blows up and everybody loses. At first I didn't see the point, but then I realized that these are little boys, and explosions are fun.

MORE...