Paulette's Bio

A Nutcracker Mood

A new production by Artspectrum

Artspectrum is pleased to announce its production of A Nutcracker Mood scheduled to premiere in fall 2002. This production will be available for touring in towns and cities across the country.

A Nutcracker Mood is a late 1930s adaptation of The Nutcracker ballet, first choreographed for the stage more than a hundred years ago. This adaptation melds the best of two possible worlds, ballet and swing music, during a time when dance and listening to music was most people’s favorite pastime. It draws on dance of every imaginable style representing the nation’s tremendous diversity.

Placing the ballet at the height of the Swing Era gives A Nutcracker Mood the advantage of using swing music, the period’s style and a revamped storyline to update the ballet’s usual look.

A Nutcracker Mood centers around a group of nightclub performers. It follows them through a radio broadcast to the Land of Snow and the Land of Sweets in which the nightclub’s patrons become one with the broadcast audience. It offers that audience a delightful trip filled with ballroom dance, swing dance and vernacular dance.

And let’s not forget it is an evening of entertainment filled with the imagery that was so important to radio listeners during that time and to theatergoers during the Romantic period.

The cast is made up of 16 dancers, singers and an announcer who play a variety of roles which have a 1930s outlook.

Artspectrum can offer performances and complementary events around the country.

We are thrilled to invite you and your group to book A Nutcracker Mood for performances. A study guide will be available for interested groups.

For more information regarding specific performances in a city near you please feel free to call Artspectrum at 800.647.9464.

A NUTCRACKER MOOD

A Nutcracker Mood (copyright 2000 by Paulette Brockington) was made possible with funding from The City of Detroit Cultural Affairs Department.

It is set during the height of the Art Deco period. It is pre-war America. Although it can be done as a theater piece in a traditional theater setting this version is set in a night club. The night club atmosphere of 1930s America should be present placing it in a ballroom or a true nightclub. And although traditional a Christmas show, it's affect on this version of the show is purely coincidental.

The show cast: In the Nightclub -

Cameron Tracey, the announcer, a Cab Calloway type
Kit Collins, the band leader
3 female singers - each capable soloists:
   Debbie Shane, an ingenue
   Mae O'Shea, a sensible headed woman who has lived a lot
   Shirley Prince, has princess like elegance, hasn't decided if she's torch singer yet but is     leaning that way
2 male singers - each dreamboats
Matt Graham, a crooner
Eddie Michaels, is a dreamer
- In the Nutcracker
Clara, the girl with the gift of a dream, her age is flexible
Mamie Drosselmeyer, eccentric and extravagant,
Major Duomo, the Sugar Plum butler
Sugar Plum Otis, a former chorus girl, an Eleanor Powell type

There are approximately 16 dancers - capable of waltz, foxtrot, tap, tango, Latin and swing with at least one tap duo.

For more information or to advertise in A Nutcracker Mood's souvenir program:
contact Artspectrum at 313-790-2311.