Nutcracker? I Don't Even Know Her!

Let us consider the holidays and how they relate to theater. Many of you may be aware that Ford's Theater presents annually Charles Dicken's Classic A Christmas Carol and various ballet companies around the country present the Nutcracker each year. What many people may not be aware of is that for many companies that produce these classics of Yuletide cheer this may be how they keep themselves in business.

Think about your own childhood. I know many people in the theater had supportive parents who took them to see shows, but for many kids seeing a Christmas play may be their first and only experience in a theater. The magic and the wonder of dancing sugar plums and ghostly apparitions trying to awake the spirit of Christmas in old Scrooge's heart may be theater and ballets one shot at making a future theater goer.

I know it is easy to scoff at our friends and collegues who are even now faking British accents and growing odd facial hair, which always seems associated with these holiday endeavors, but for some child who has never set foot in the theater this could be the one memory that makes them take a chance on plays like Rough Magic, Family Stories and Beard of Avon.

So to all of you dancing rats and proud residents of Victorian England, to every ASM shaking snow out on actors who are sweating under five layers of winter wear in a theater kept at a audience friendly 73 degrees, and to everyone who has chosen to appear in or work on a Christmas play that won't close until well into January, I say God Bless us Everyone!