Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: The beloved holiday ballet “The Nutcracker” is in full swing this month at Benedum Center.
This marks the 16th season that Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre has danced artistic director Terrence Orr’s Pittsburgh-flavored adaptation of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s 1816 tale about a girl’s favorite toy coming to life and whisking her away on a fantastical adventure. Mr. Orr has woven Pittsburgh landmarks and lore throughout the show, which is set to Tchaikovsky’s signature “Nutcracker” score.
4 comments:
I love seeing articles about what happens behind the scenes at shows. It gives the audience a chance to really see what all has to go into a production. The hours and hours of costume construction and maintenance, lighting, sets, drops, props, special effects. The rehearsal process and spacing. All of these things that make a full production. I also like to see how other people do special tricks and effects to save in my bag of tricks for later. I’ve been involved in several productions of The Nutcracker and each one is always different. It’s these little things that make the production more meaningful. Seeing hard work like this being recognized brings warm fuzzies and it also means that the hard work and dedication of the staff, crew, crew heads, parents, volunteers, and all those behind the scenes get a little light and glory shown on the work that occurs out of the view of the audience. Bravo!!
This is an excellent quick look at what some of the things are that go on for one of the most done productions this time of the year for almost every ballet company. This is so fresh in my mind because it is something I have had the privilege of working on for the past six years. This has grown for me to become the ATD with the company and go out on tours of the production this past Thanksgiving and once I leave on Friday pick t back up mid-show in Oklahoma City. I think that this summation of what goes on is excellent for those that have no idea. Far too often do people who see the show no realize the amount of work it takes to put the whole production on. This article did an excellent job of keeping it simple but yet exciting and no belittling any jobe that people do.
My family has been going to the Nutcracker every year around Christmas time since I was a little girl and to the Nutcracker at the Benedum Theatre for quite a few years now. I always look forward to it as it is a stunning version of the Nutcracker and of such a large scale. The Benedum is also really great at showing a lot of the backstage work as well as the history of their production. Last year they had displays outside of the theatre which broke down all the work that goes into a production and explained the rehearsals process as well as many of the design elements including details on the massive number of costumes and how long each type of costume took to build. This article and video were a quick overview of all the work that really happens but we’re exciting to watch and a good way to share all the work that happens with the community.
It is a great article in that in included many details that are usually left out. Many behind the scene articles tend to show photos of what the dancers look like backstage, what the dressing rooms look like and what the chorus members do backstage. But, this one listed what it takes to load in the show, how long it takes to do it, how many people are called each time and etc. Really succinctly it gave me an idea of the scale and magnitude of the production. Very recently when president of IATSE local 3 came to class as a guest lecturer, he said any city that has a resident opera and ballet companies have the best IATSE crews. Or at least the best crews get sent to the ballet and opera productions because they require skills in large numbers. I can see how that came to be, just seeing the number of people, costumes and possibly props that they showed in the video and photos.
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