Fans of Pacific Northwest Ballet's "Nutcracker" may know the following facts, but for those new to the Northwest:
* The colorful sets were designed by famed picturebook artist Maurice Sendak and premièred in 1983.
* The 950-pound Christmas Tree grows from 14 to 28 feet in height.
* The 27-foot Mouse King is actually a puppet with 17 moving pieces.
* Each year PNB's scene shop creates 500 pounds of "snow" from fireproof paper for the show's run.
* More than 115 props are needed for this ballet.
* Approximately 40 stagehands work backstage during each "Nutcracker" performance to make sure that nothing goes wrong.
For the last 20 years, the man in charge of all this Christmas madness has been Randall G. Chiarelli, better known as Ricco.
Chiarelli, PNB's resident lighting director and technical director since 1979, is a Seattle native. His father, architect James Chiarelli, designed the conversion of the old Civic Hall into the Seattle Opera House for the 1962 World's Fair.
Watching his father work on the Opera House project, Chiarelli once said, led to his early interest in theater lighting. For the teardown and conversion of the Opera House to the new Marion Oliver McCaw Hall, Chiarelli served on the Seattle Center Theatrical System Design Review Team. This committee of PNB, Seattle Opera and other technical advisors went over all the plans for McCaw Hall with the architects to ensure that the building met the theatrical requirements of ballet, opera and visiting companies.
Last December, with the hall still under construction, PNB took their popular "Nutcracker" downtown to the Paramount Theatre. "That actually worked well," said Chiarelli. "The sets looked really nice in that theater with its white and gold décor. We had to sacrifice some lighting, but only one set-piece didn't fit."
The biggest problem with the Paramount, said Chiarelli, was the lack of backstage space. "During setup, there's always a fight for real estate - space to assemble bits [like the Mouse King puppet]," said Chiarelli. "At the Paramount, we took advantage of a side street and hoped it didn't rain until we were done. We used the same tactics when we took 'Nutcracker' to New York."
The new McCaw Hall has eliminated most of the real-estate fights. An unloading area in the hall equivalent to the size of the stage allowed for assembly and storage of large pieces.
The "Nutcracker" has been PNB's "hardest working" set by far, said Chiarelli. "In the early years, we used to do 53 performances and take it on tour."
These days, the set stays in Seattle, but simply pulling it out of storage and taking it to the hall creates wear-and-tear on the 20-year-old painted canvas and wood. Three semi trailers are required to haul all the pieces from storage to the hall.
"Taking it in and out of the trucks, that always causes the most damage every year," said Chiarelli.
Setup occupies three 16-hour days for the crew. "It took more days in the early years, but that's the advantage of doing this for 20 years," said Chiarelli. "Safety is the first concern. My crew is very conscientious about checking all the rigging and so on. The public cannot see this, but it's our primary concern, that everything is safe for the performers."
Then the large pieces - the prologue's giant Toy Theater, the Christmas Tree and the Mouse King - are assembled. Finally, the painters touch up anything that may have gotten scraped or bumped during the move-in. Chiarelli has never been tempted to tell the painters to change the look of any part of the set. "The 'Nutcracker' set really is a work of art. To change it would be like painting a mustache on a masterpiece," he said.
This year, like the last 20 years, Chiarelli will be there for 12-hour days of matinee and evening performances. And, like a lot of PNB people, he does get a little tired of the Waltz of the Flowers music, which follows him even during his breaks away from the show.
"You get maybe three hours between a matinee and an evening show, so you jump the monorail downtown to do your Christmas shopping - and there's the 'Nutcracker' music playing in all the stores," he said.
But one scene continues to enchant Chiarelli. "For some reason, I've never gotten tired of the snow scene," he said. "Maybe it's because they never play that music in the department stores."
As for the "snow" that falls throughout the scene, it is recycled by PNB. "We sweep it up every night, run magnets through it to remove any bobby pins or nails that might have gotten in it, and reload the snow bags with about 200 pounds of snow. We have to reload the bags about every third show," Chiarelli said.
Another thing that keeps Chiarelli from "Nutcracker" burnout is the enthusiastic reaction of the youngest members of the cast and audience to the "magic" of the whole show. "It's the one thing that keeps you going every December, the kids that you see in the show and the audience. Their energy is truly contagious," Chiarelli said.
More than 100,000 people are expected to attend the 33 performances of the "Nutcracker" at McCaw Hall this holiday season.[[In-content Ad]]
