We’re all back now from our layoff and are into week two of Nutcracker rehearsals. Everyone always asks why we have to keep rehearsing Nut after so many years. Well… it doesn’t matter how many years you’ve done it, it’s still hard! And it still needs rehearsing. It could easily look tired or sloppy to the audience if we’re not careful, vigilant, and keep it up to snuff.

Nutcracker is also the time of year when several dancers get to cut their teeth on some new, challenging roles, so for them it’s certainly not a time to be complacent. Be sure to look for some young new faces out there this year. The irony is that we have the shortest rehearsal period of the season to get Nut up to speed— only eleven days in the studio before starting tech rehearsals at the theater. That’s not a lot of time, even for a veteran!

This is also the first year in many that we’ve not gone on our annual pilgrimage to Anchorage, Alaska over Thanksgiving weekend to do six performances of Nutcracker. It was lovely to have the long holiday weekend at home, but strange– I couldn’t remember the last time I had such an experience, nor what to do with it! All we could do was think about how it was our last chance to relax until December 27…