KMXT 100.1 FM Public Radio in Kodiak, Alaska
With more than 200 people involved in its production, “The Nutcracker” is one of the year’s largest productions performed at the Gerald C. Wilson Auditorium.
Mary Beth Loewen directs as little mice and snowflakes take the stage along with seasoned performers in this weekend’s opening performances of the festive Christmas ballet.
She spoke with KMXT’s Maggie Wall.
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“It takes place in a well to do Russian household on Christmas Eve. And there’s two young children who are brought magical gifts by their godfather and then she has a dream and the second act is really a display of all of the gifts that wealthy and aristocratic Russian children would have been given at the holiday time. So it’s French bond bonds and coffee from Arabia and chocolate from Spain and things that only the very wealthiest in Russia could afford at that time. And so the second act is just this splendid, sumptuous kingdom of the sweets that Clara goes and visits as a Christmas grand spectacle.
Wall: I remember as a little kid in school In Indiana happy to be able to recognize the sound of the Nutcracker. Dun, ta, de dun, dun dun dun dun, I would imagine most people can pull that out of your head.”
Loewen: Oh, I think so it’s played on every Christmas music station around the country. And here in Kodiak because it’s done every three years, it’s extra special for our students, they get to grow up with it. And they might start as like a gingerbread doll, and they might be a party child Three years later, and three years after that they might get a different role. And so for our students who have danced since they were young, this is a really special way to mark their dance careers passage.”
One of those actors who performed in a past Nutcracker has graduated to many different roles in this year’s production.
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“My name is Myla Woodley, and I am the ballerina on the party scene. I am part of this no core, I’m part of waltz of the flowers, and I’m also mother ginger in land of the sweets. So you’re doing all these different roles, is that a hard thing to do? I’ve been dancing for nearly 13 years now and it’s not the first time I’ve done so many roles, but it definitely doesn’t get any easier.
“This is actually the second time that I’ve been in snow and the second time that I’ve been watering the flowers, and it does get hard putting in so many hours, especially as you get older, you get more responsibilities and things like that. But it’s never not fun. And I never really think of it as like a chore or a hard thing to do.”
Wall: “And so you’ve been dancing for 13 years.
Woodley: Yeah, just about, I actually started dancing when my mom took me to the Nutcracker when I was five or six. And I vividly remember dancing up and down the aisles. And Miss Molly Brody, coming to me and yelling at me, telling me that I was distracting the dancers.”
“And then that following January, I was enlisted in ballet classes and I was in the Lion King as a giraffe when I was like six.”
“The Nutcracker” opens tonight at 7 p.m.
Schedule This Weekend
Friday, Dec. 6 at 7 pm
Saturday, Dec. 7 at 2 pm
Saturday, Dec. 7 at 7 pm
Sunday, Dec. 8 at 2 pm
Gerald C. Wilson Auditorium
