November 29, 2012

SDB Nutcracker 2011 Photo: Manny Rotenberg
Tech rehearsal at the Birch Theatre today.
After a delay in starting, we spaced out most of the first act scenes without the orchestra. As we were about to begin the snow scene, the orchestra was ready to go.

SDB Nutcracker 2011 Photo: Manny Rotenberg
So we went back to the top and worked our way through with them. Just a few tempos we needed to fix. We also had to take a break to go back and space out the baby mice and toy soldiers on the stage.

SDB Nutcracker 2011 Photo: Manny Rotenberg
As I was sitting downstairs munching on a Chicken Little sandwich from KFC (I don't indulge much, but every once in a while...) I heard the Finale music start to play. It seems they had decided to run the Finale once so that the younger children could go home as soon as their variations were done. But no one mentioned it to everyone who was downstairs. Oh well, after a mad scramble we made it up in time.

The Birch is rather small backstage, so it takes a very coordinated effort to make sure that the dancers, and the kids, and the sets move on and off seamlessly. Or at least that no one's toes get crunched.