Natick Nutcrackers, Day 3: Broadway Bound

Introduction

Broadway Bound calls their performance "Nuts and Bolts," preparing you for the fact that this is not a traditional Nutcracker. It wasn't. In fact, I wouldn't even call it a Nutcracker performance, It's more of a holiday spectacular. I described it to my wife as, "More Rockettes, less Boston Ballet."

That said, it was very good - very high energy.

Authenticity

As I said before, this wasn't really a Nutcracker. The program listed the usual parts of the Nutcracker, Party Scene, Trepak, Snow Scene, etc. But if you were looking at it, most of the time you didn't see this on stage. My daughter says BB is more of a competition school, and it looked it. Lots of spangly costumes, lots of troupe dancing, lots of loud music. It opened up with, "It don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that swing!" and continued throughout with jazzy, up-tempo and big band pieces as well as a few traditional and non-traditional arrangements of the Tchaikovsky Nutcracker.

But they went for it and did it well.

Score: 8/10 for effort and a bonus point for not doing any hip-hop (I detest hip-hop) +1

Staging and Costumes

The costumes were appropriate for the pieces. As I mentioned before, lots of sparkly and spangly costumes and very Rockettes-like. The staging was a little sparse, but they did have appropriate backdrops. This was presented at Natick High School, which is brand new, and it shows. The acoustics were excellent, the lighting was excellent, and the seating was excellent. Our tax dollars look well spent.

Score: 8/10

Christmas Tree Growth

They had a Christmas tree, bu it didn't do anything special. During the time when it should have been growing and the Nutcracker should have been coming out, it just stood there looking all "O Tannenbaum-ish." A missed opportunity.
Score: 4/10 (ouch!)

Lacrosse Bonus Points

I did see one of my former lacrosse players dancing, but she said she was the only one, and none of her team-mates were there to cheer her on (for shame!). So only one point for that. However, I am awarding an additional bonus point for using jazzy, swing numbers and an additional point for using Bow-wow-wow's "I Want Candy" for the candy cane dance and having the Arabian dance to A. R Rahman's Jai ho in a vaguely Bollywood style.

Hey! It's my blog. If you disagree with the bonus points, get yer own blog!

Bonus points: +3

Final Comments

Like I said before, this is not a typical Nutcracker, but rather a Holiday Spectacular. But once I got over my surprise, I enjoyed it and the dancers looked like they were having fun. This isn't the performance if you're looking for a traditional Nutcracker, but if you're looking for a high-energy, loud and sparkly holiday performance, this is one to consider. The kiddies would love it. My only recommendation would be more 80s music.
Recommended.

Total Score: 20/30 +1 for no hip hop, +3 for lacrosse and music for 24 points (they got bonked on the tree!)
(a note on scoring - don't take these numbers seriously. Everyone wants to rank things nowadays, but really now, points for lacrosse players? Points for the tree? Bonus points for 80's music?)