"Well, it's not good enough!" Having had the last word, Laurie went off in a huff.
She was right. It wasn't good enough. However, it was the best we had. If someone ever built a proper theater for the performing arts it would be nice if they could actually build one that catered to the needs of the performer. Maybe, but I wasn't going to hold my breath.
I'd danced in too many less than ideal facilities in the past to think catering for the performers actually rated as important to the designers and people funding them. The problem was all those special features performers would love to have are hidden from the audience. Out of sight, out of mind.
The punters like to see what they are getting for their money. So what if there is only one shower for all of the performers, and it runs out of hot water too quickly. The audience doesn't care.
Thursday morning the sun still hadn't shown itself as I made my way to the high school auditorium. We were about to have some real fun, a morning of general rehearsals on the stage, followed in the afternoon by a full dress rehearsal before visiting officials and media.
I just love performing to the powers-that-be and the media. They sit just there. You know you have to put on a good performance, but there is no feedback. Politicians and critics, as a rule, make a lousy audience, hardly raising a cheer or applauding. If they weren't so important to the continued well-being of the company I would have banned them. However, Mary Simpson had arranged for them to attend. So attend they would.
To make best use of our limited time the company worked out in one of the classrooms that had been set up with temporary barres while various scenes were practiced on the stage. People were coming and going between the changing rooms as costumes were checked out, and students practiced quick changes of costume. Those playing soldiers would be worst. At least the mice didn't need a lot of makeup.
We had to run through the scenes several times before the lighting technicians learned what and when to illuminate. The pas de deux between my two pairings of leads were real fun. I had let Carl talk me into trying to recreate the scene from the Covent Garden version of Nutcracker where Nureyev, as the prince, first appears just after the fight with the Mouse King. It looked like it might work. First Cathy McNally as Clara was lit, then Joseph as the Nutcracker, standing in the back corner of the stage, arms raised as the spotlight is suddenly turned on.
It took three tries, but eventually the lighting technician worked out where to point the spotlight. It lacked a little of the dramatic impact of the original, but then, Joseph was no Nureyev. Other than that, it was mainly a matter of getting the technicians used to tracking the performers. They just weren't used to tracking people moving with the speed of my dancers, but by carefully making notes of where the performer should be at what point in the music they finally started to keep the spotlight on the soloists.
Then we tried the full dress rehearsal with the audience of politicians and media. Anything that could go wrong did. Fortunately, there was nothing the audience could pick up on. First, there were logjams as the party guests poured off stage to change for the fight scene. It threatened to degenerate into an all-out brawl. There was considerable pushing and shoving. Some of the children were whacked around the ankles with out of control hobbyhorses, and a couple of the girls retaliated with their dolls. A couple of the dolls lost heads and limbs. One of the ballet mothers picked up the pieces and chased after the girls. Hopefully repairs would be possible.
Then the Christmas tree refused to grow. There was supposed to be an Alice in Wonderland type effect, with Clara shrinking to the same size as the mice and toy soldiers. But the tree refused to move. Oh well, I doubt any of that audience would notice.
Then we moved into the fight between the soldiers and the mice. It was flowing nicely. Carl and Joseph were making a real production of the fight between the Mouse King and Nutcracker. And then one of the children, trying to "die" theatrically, tripped and fell heavily. The young boy was in tears as he marched from the stage at the end of the scene. I managed to give him a cuddle and compliment him on staying in character until he was off stage before he was led away for attention by one of the small army of stage mothers. Hopefully he would be ready to come back for the final scene. I made a note to use what happened as a warning to the others.
The performance seemed to be going well. The mass en pointe dances went without a hitch. The Sweet dances all went well, and the lighting technicians were even able to follow Carl at his most dynamic. Finally the rehearsal came to an end. We even got some applause from the audience. Most of it was from family of the cast who had been invited in to watch. The politicians and media representatives were embarrassed into giving nominal polite applause. Not like the princess. She was almost bouncing in her seat. It was probably only Lady Ulrike's heavy hand that was holding her in place. The cast bowed and curtseyed to the audience before the curtain closed for the last time. I quickly got changed from my costume so I could go out and talk to politicians and media.