Cracked Nuts

Each December, Emmett's ballet school puts together a production of the Nutcracker. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the New Paltz Ballet School performing the Nutcracker in Poughkeepsie's famous Bardavon, the oldest theater in New York state.

Emmett was asked to audition for this ballet, and he landed the role of 'party boy.' There weren't many options, tho, because most kids his age are girls, and most of the parts are for girls. Perhaps in future performances he could have a role in the second act, the one with all of the dancing marzipans and other candies. But for next year, he has his sights set on the part of 'rat' or maybe even 'Fritz,' the naughty lad who spitefully breaks the nutcracker in Act I.

The party scene calls for 6 sets of parents (including the hosts) and about 14 or 15 kids, half of whom are boys. Of course, in a school with an underabundance of male participants (as is often the case), many girls end up as party boys, and this year, Emmett is the only one with a Y chromosome in that role. The party moms are played by teenagers from the ballet school, but the party dads are volunteers like me who get roped into being (ok, who are dying to be) onstage for a few minutes. Party dads wear old-style tuxedoes and a few layers of makeup, and we look pretty snazzy except for our hats. These plastic top-hats could have been taken off the heads of New Years revellers at a TGIFridays, but they looked authentic from the audience. In general, the clothes are excellent; it turns out that the director's mother helped with them, which is a good thing because the Nutcracker uses over a hundred costumes.

Party dads don't rehearse much, but as the performance approached, it suddenly occurred to us that we have one objective: Don't mess up. The Bardavon holds over 900 seats, so in our three performances, we're seen by our friends, family, and about 2700 other people. So like all men in tuxedoes, our goal is to fit in. Happily, Saturday's matinee went well, emboldening us to think about making a few little touches to appear more realistic in the roles of Victorian-era men at a party. In my case, this meant taking a fellow party dad's advice to doff my top-hat before kissing the hostess's hand. I managed to remember this for that evening's show but forgot by the next day. Ah well, there's always 2007. Our confidence also allowed us to joke about making up back stories for our 2-dimensional characters.

My back story was this: I had had an affair with the hostess. Upon entering, I kiss her hand just a little too long, raising suspicion in the mind of the host. He glances furtively at my face in time to catch a gleam in my eye that confirms that the crumpled undergarments he found shoved hastily beneath his bed were indeed mine. He spends the rest of the party putting up a good face before the other guests and his children but makes a secret vow to challenge me to a duel as soon as he
can. As we shake hands at the end of the party, he holds mine just a little too long, stifling the urge to throttle me on the spot. I correctly interpret this to mean that he has uncovered my cockoldry and make a secret vow to get out of the country posthaste, as I am a coward of the highest degree. I'm not sure that these back stories were necessary, but they certainly took some of the stress out of a somewhat tense time backstage.

When Sunday's performance ended, I felt that mixture of relief and sorrow familiar to all performers. I was glad that we had all performed our roles admirably, but I was sad to lose the camraderie among the party dads. There is no cast party, but some of us felt the need for one. Next year, Shirra and I plan to host that event ourselves, having already received the blessing of the school's directors. Now we just have to figure out how to shoehorn up to 80 dancers and their families
into our modest home. Methinks the basement will come in handy for that. It will be fun for everyone to celebrate the end of another great run, especially for those of us cracked nuts who only won't be getting together till next year.