December comes and Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker” starts playing in my head.
For a dozen years, “The Nutcracker” ballet was as much a part of our holiday season as Santa Claus. And when people ask me what Cape Codders do in winter, I mention this local-centric holiday event. Come December, you can always find a production of "The Nutcracker" put on by a regional dance school, each varying in its complexity and faithfulness to the original and showcasing locals.
Our particular “Nutcracker” was produced annually by Virginia Zango Traube, a former Boston Ballet soloist and long-time teacher in West Dennis. For years, she wrangled scores of children to present a “Nutcracker” production in school auditoriums that let everyone be a star. That included any 4-year-old willing to attend several weeks of class rehearsal as well as a marathon dress rehearsal to get 17 seconds of fame on stage as a fairy (yes, I timed it).
"Nutcracker" was always the first weekend of December – the weekend when other people were at holiday strolls and buying Christmas trees and kicking off holiday parties. Instead, our holidays started with an hours-long dress rehearsal Thursday night that rolled into performances on Friday night, Saturday afternoon, Saturday night and Sunday afternoon – punctuated by homework and whatever else needed doing. It was a little bit Broadway; a little bit Navy Seal endurance test. By Sunday night, we were all, well, nutcrackered.
Mrs. Zango – and she was always Mrs. Zango, never Virginia – would hire a couple of ringers to dance the Sugar Plum Fairy and her consort or maybe the Snow Queen. But the rest of the roles were for her students. They ranged from the smallest pre-schoolers to the middle and high school girls who finally earned toe shoes. They got to show their parents that hundreds of miles of driving and money for lessons were not wasted. She also added plenty of magic – the Christmas tree grew, the Nutcracker turned into a real soldier, Mother Ginger appeared with a secret stash of children under her skirt.
And for the little dancers, it was all about the thrill of getting to wear a sparkly costume, eye make-up and a hair bun so tight it could be a Hollywood facelift. As a backstage mom, I would struggle to corral every stray hair with a yellowish hair-glop that was like Nickelodeon slime mixed with Gorilla Glue. I can’t say what we called it on the radio.
Dancers worked their way through a hierarchy of roles based on age and size: fairies, mice, soldiers, candy canes, various sweets in the second act, and, if you were lucky, a girl in the first-act party scene. Those girls got to wear flouncy dresses and put their hair in banana curls. The “boys” – mostly girl dancers – wore cropped jackets and awkward wigs.
There were also adult dancers in Act One – mostly parents willing to pantomime and learn a couple of easy dances. My husband was one of them. He was recruited when our older daughter was around 6 and, in a moment of weakness, said he would do it as long as she did. He wasn’t counting on Daughter No. 2. Hence, the 12-year commitment.
For a couple of years, the adult group included a fisherman who would bring a seafood buffet forthe green room, aka a classroom at Dennis-Yarmouth High School, for the break between shows on Saturday. Adult beverages might also have been involved, which made Act One a bit too much of a party until Mrs. Zango shut it down.
My role was support staff – doing make-up, finding lost tights, sewing torn costumes, bringing flowers, listening to ever-present dancer drama, or taking a group of candy canes in their stage make-up to Friendly’s for a quick dinner. It was very cool to get to go out to dinner between shows in your stage make-up because everyone knew you were a dancer.
At some point while my girls were still performing in Mrs. Zango’s “Nutcracker,” we got to go backstage to see the sets that local set designers Helen Pond and Herbet Senn were creating for the Boston Ballet version. The scale was startling – the Christmas tree ornaments were almost the size of volleyballs. The girls were dazzled. But I don’t know if it really meant as much as their “Nutcracker,” which taught them about discipline, collaboration, and the fun of pretending you’re someone else. Merry Christmas, Mrs. Zango, and thank you.
