The Cupcake and The Nephew

 Nutcracker was sad this year for the older girls, it being Golda's last year.  They cried their eyes out the last night, and I couldn't contain my emotions, either.  So let's not talk about that right now.  Let's talk about Freestone and Xanthe.  Xanthe had her own experience, in the Cupcake room with her chaperones.  I didn't mean to ignore her, but she was totally taken care of.  In fact, I dropped her off one night without her hair done and went with Freestone to do his hair, since Xanthe had until the second act to get ready.  When I made my way back to the Cupcake room, one of the mom chaperones had put Xanthe's hair in a perfect bun.  I was so happy!  She said that Xanthe had given her this song and dance about not knowing where her mom was, and if she was ever coming back.  Ha ha!  Xanthe loves to be ultra-prepared.  Each night when it was time to leave for the theater, there was a tiny freak-out over the number of bobby pins Xanthe had.  She always had plenty, and there was never a hair disaster onstage, but it's probably only because Xanthe was so on the ball about getting her hair secured, whatever it took.   I am so happy, especially now with Golda graduating, that I still have Xanthe and the other kids to share Nutcracker experiences with.

Freestone had the best experience as Nephew, even if real life kept getting in the way.  I mean, science fair?  Come on!  It took us one hour at midnight after a dress rehearsal to fake the results of our bread molding experiment in which the bread never molded, but did make a mess for two weeks.  So annoying.  Not nearly as fun as this...

 Taking the flowers onstage during curtain calls, with Fritz.

 Erasing science fairs, reading logs and Fun Fridays from his mind and getting into character.  Just kidding.  He was probably just blinking.  Those lights are bright!

 Freestone's role had the latitude for him to experiment with his character.  He got more comfortable with it every night, and therefore funnier and more relaxed.  The gag with the hats was so funny.  The Nephew gives Drosselmeyer his hat and puts his own hat on, but he gets them mixed us, so his hat comes down to his chin and Drosselmeyer's perches on top of his head.  The first night, there was stuffing in the big hat, so it didn't come down far enough on Freestone.  After that, Free made sure that he checked the hat before the show started so the gag would work.  He was so dang funny to watch.  I admit, I loved every minute of it.

The last day, Freestone said to me backstage, "I think I'm a good nephew."  I love that all of his hard work could translate into something he could own confidently, and something he can get positive recognition for.  School has been hard for him this year.  The French is dang hard, and the homework is a constant albatross.  Dance is freedom from all of that.  The exhaustion is so fulfilling.  On Friday night, Freestone came home and fell asleep on the couch in his tights and t-shirt.  Saturday morning, he didn't wake up until it was time to get in the car, still in the same outfit.  I'm pretty sure he wishes every day could be a repeat of that scenario, going to a place where you're somewhat of a hero to the younger boys, performing for adoring crowds, then falling into a blissful exhaustion without once thinking of school.  I can see why people get addicted to the theater lifestyle!

 Ptolemy did sneak backstage once.  Don't tell anyone.

 Winding the Doll

 The Nephew stuffed animal.  We have a small fortune worth of Nutcracker animals at out house.  You have to get the one that corresponds to your role each year.  It's a tradition.

 This is NOT representative of what went on in the boys' dressing room.  It was sheer madness in there the whole time.  Picture a tiny room with 9 boys, all of them playing with kendamas and wrestling each other to the ground in their costumes.  I'm pretty sure they had more fun than anyone in the whole show!  I know this boy did.