A Night at the Nutcracker dress rehearsal

Shirley

On Thursday, December 8, the GAAH Press Club saw the dress rehearsal for The Nutcracker presented by the Grand Rapids Ballet Company at DeVos Hall.  

I liked the part of the play when they had a party and a war, but the part that was boring felt like it repeated. There was a bunch of eight-year-olds dressed as mice that had to do two dress rehearsals. The third cannon didn’t boom, and there were other big fat mice. There were soldiers wearing those old soldier suits. The Nutcracker came to life like a real person. The sad thing is that the mice and the Nutcracker died.  

My opinion is that it was entertaining and boring at the same time. The part that was fun was really entertaining, especially when the boom came from the cannon. The boring part was when they kept on dancing when they didn’t even talk. It kept on repeating and repeating on and on.

Avelycia

With everyone sitting down on their seats on Thursday, December 8, 2011, a group in the audience was the GAAH Press Club cubs enjoying the scenery. Our eyes scattered and our mouths went off. Waiting for silence, but more fun later on. The performers of a dress rehearsal at the DeVos Hall by the the Grand Rapids Ballet Company were waiting for us to see their creation.

There was a main character named Clara Stahlbaum. She is about ten to twelve years old with blond hair. I’d say she did a rating of 9.5 out of 10 because at the end she just sat down and barely cooperated. She did a good job at dancing because she was on her tippy-toes the entire time. I can’t even do that. I picked Clara because her dancing went with the music and it looked like to me that she didn’t mess up a lot.

Three things I like about Clara are that she didn’t get out of character, she had facial expressions in her act, and when she had to do the scene over again she jumped back to work. There is not much that I don’t like from her. The only thing that I didn’t like was that she was talking to the man during the culture dance. 

The play was really cool to watch, with Clara dancing around the Christmas tree with her new Nutcracker. My opinion is that if they could’ve done better by having a higher age of mice and they wouldn’t have to do the scene again. Clara did a good job for her age for acting, especially during the cake scene. She had her face scared when she hid. Hopefully they could do it again on the ice maybe.

Antonio

On December 8, 2011, the GAAH Press Club went to see the dress rehearsal of the Nutcracker. Sometimes the play had to stop for the actors to try again. Some of the mice were nine and ten years old.

At midnight the three mice were stealing presents. All the girls got dolls, but the main character got a Nutcracker. All the boys got swords and guns. There were explosions; I saw the walls go red. There was a group of ballerinas that wore white dresses, and fake snow was falling on them. I hope no one swallowed it.

At the end, all of the people who performed- Russian, Chinese people and many more- danced. I know how to do the move the Russians did. It was called the Coffee Grinder.  

In the Nutcracker there are two things that I learned: boys can dance ballet and explosions are cool!

Edgar

On Thursday, December 8, the GAAH Press Club went to see the dress rehearsal for the Nutcracker by the Grand Rapids Ballet Company at DeVos Hall.

The part I liked best was when the mice and the soldiers were fighting. The mice and soldiers came to the stage; they started fighting. The soldiers had swords, and the mice had swords too. When they were fighting too much, the soldiers got a big cannon and shot it at the mice. The wall was red when they shot the mice.

I didn’t like when the ballerinas danced and when they didn’t talk because it was boring.

Donny 

The GAAH Press Club went to go see the Nutcracker. It was a good event, but there was a big plethora of people. It took a while to start, but the show was not that long to start.

It started with people in a group, dancing to celebrate Christmas. The boys, for a present, got swords or guns. The girls, also for presents, got dolls, except for the main character. She got a Nutcracker. On and on, they kept on dancing. In the night, mice started lingering around. But it seems to me that a man came through a clock. Peculiarly, he took the main character. But they saw something, a battle.

People came from two buildings. On the right came out soldiers to protect the king, the Nutcracker. On the left, came out mice that were protecting the King of Mice. Then they started battling to protect each other. Then the King of Mice and the Nutcracker were starting to battle with swords. The Nutcracker stabbed the King of Mice. Quickly, the King of Mice stabbed him harder, the Nutcracker. Then the Nutcracker died. The main character threw her shoe at the King of Mice, and he too died.

This was not the whole story, but I wrote what I could remember the best. But, we saw this Thursday, December 8. Over all, I thought that it was a great event except you had to pay really close attention to get the story, so it was confusing at some parts.