Nutcracker's first casualty

Our little group of adult supporting cast has suffered its first casualty. One of our members has torn ligaments in her ankle, and will be off her foot for the next 6 weeks. Since our performances are in 7 weeks, she's out of the production.

We all wish her good healing and a speedy return to dance. I hope we see her in the audience in December, or the next audition this winter.

As for the rest of us, things are going well. While it's the supporting cast's first time in this production, most of the rest have done this for several years. I've learned that the woman cast as "Grandmother" is a professional dancer; she's in the supporting cast for this production because she's recovering from an injury. She attends the same ballet school I do; I passed her in the hallway yesterday as she was leaving her class and I was entering mine.

In my role as "Grandfather", my entrance originally was choreographed as hobbling in, leaning on a nurse on my left and a cane in my right. That's (thankfully!) been changed, as it's inconsistent with the dancing I do a few minutes later. My entrance is still with the nurse and cane, but it's now a dignified, strutting entrance as an elder gentleman with a walking stick.

With this in mind, I dusted off my top hat (yes, literally) and walking stick from my Victorian/Edwardian costume and brought them to rehearsal today. Melissa immediately broke into a massive grin and said she approved. Emily didn't react at all (to my disappointment) but integrated them into the production without hesitation.

The one part of my costume I'm really frustrated by is my shoes. I thought I'd buy a pair of Bloch jazz shoes, as they'd look more like something a man would wear to a party than ballet slippers, yet they're flexible enough to dance in. I don't do any turns in this production, so the grippy sole won't cause problems. The website recommended starting one full size smaller than street shoes, so I ordered size 9.5. Nope, way too big. Then I ordered a pair of size 9, which arrived this morning. They're closer, but still longer than I'd like. I have pairs of size 8.5 and 8 on order that are supposed to show up next week.