Big undertaking
Lots of backstage logistics go into the new, elaborate staging of ‘The Nutcracker’.
“Elaborate” doesn’t quite describe it.
The Georgian mansion that will fill the stage during the first act of Stanton Welch’s new version of “The Nutcracker,” which Houston Ballet unveils Thanksgiving weekend, looks realistic to the tiniest details.
Andrew Nielsen, Houston Ballet’s new production director, gave us a peek recently at some of the first sets to arrive for preassembly at the company’s Fifth Ward warehouse.
Standing two stories, the Act 1 party house “unit,” as backstage pros call it, rises 28 feet tall and weighs about 7,000 pounds. It dominates the largest bay in the warehouse, surrounded by workbenches full of power tools and smaller set pieces and props.
Columns and carved architectural flourishes decorate the set’s facade, which frames an open room with red walls, large windows and a balcony whose ornate railing is made of lasercut steel.
A big clock, still to come, will double as a door. It will have an owl-shaped finial that bobs and a set of enormous bat wings that open, Nielsen said. The production’s busy mice will enter the stage through a mechanical “hole” along the floor.
The house’s windows can fly open. The whole house, in fact, will split apart and explode as a giant tree grows through it.
But most magically, the whole thing is as light on its feet as the Sugar Plum Fairy.
A system of eight air casters on one side will enable the crew to lift the massive structure
inch off the floor, so they can whisk it offstage in seconds.
Because dozens of dancers will be positioning themselves for entrances and dashing to a quick-change booth, Nielsen and his crew will be shifting sets continuously during performances — turning them 180 degrees here, 360 there — in backstage choreography as precise as the action onstage.
Nielsen has generated a pile of blueprints detailing where every piece goes, and when. “The Wortham is huge, but everything in this show is enormous,” he said. “When the house is offstage, it’s going to take up all of the wings.”
A panel painted with a Renaissance-inspired cloudy sky rested near the house unit. That motif will also appear on five layers of portal like vertical “legs” that will frame the stage, outfitted with LED lights that will lend a heavenly glow.
A fanciful rolling puppet theater is ready to go. It’s part of a three-piece train that will be pulled by a dancer costumed as a monkey, pedaling a gilded tricycle. Two other dancers will push the theater, also propelling a cart with a mechanical elephant. On the elephant’s head, a Fabergé-inspired egg will open to reveal a replica of the Sugar Plum Fairy. Did we say over the top? “There’s a lot of fun automation,” Nielsen said. “It’s this magical, mystical world.”
This production of “The Nutcracker,” which is replacing Ben Stevenson’s much-loved, 27-year-old staging, is the most expensive undertaking in the company’s history. The sets alone cost more than $1.5 million, for good reason: They need to last for decades.
They’re not just realisticlooking. They’re rock-solid, Nielsen said.
He studied opera performance in college and came to Houston via Milwaukee Ballet and the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. He also worked 10 years as a production manager at Atlanta’s Fox Theater, where the shows ranged from Broadway touring extravaganzas to rock concerts. So he’s no stranger to complex backstage logistics.
“We had ‘Phantom of the Opera’ in its original form, which took up 35 trucks,” he said.
Still, he’s awed by veteran British designer Tim Goodchild’s intricate creations for this “Nutcracker,” which were conceived the oldfashioned way, drawn in ink on paper.
The London company Souvenir Stage Designs, which also makes sets for major West End theater productions and Alexander McQueen’s fashion shows, is building the sets and props.
“Part of it is just the work that scene shop does. We’re lucky to have them. But part of it’s Tim,” Nielsen said. “It’s unbelievable. Beautiful. He is a treasure.”
The first pieces filled three shipping containers. Nielson expects seven more containers to arrive by Nov. 1.
He’s anxious to see the border of molded fiberglass that will embellish the Wortham Theater’s proscenium arch; “hangers” (pieces hung from the rafters) that include huge, cast garlands with chandeliers; and what could be the show’s most talked-about element — a 30-foot tree with a spiral staircase inside its trunk, where characters will ascend to Goodchild’s dreamy Land of Sweets.
Back in the warehouse, as we marveled at the house’s painted floor, which mimics fancy tile, our voices carried as if the set had microphones. Some padding will fix that, Nielsen said.
He had other tweaks to perform as well. The zig-zaggy cracks in the walls and floor, where the house will split apart, weren’t yet matching up properly.
There’s still much left to solve.
The house has about 100 parts that will be dismantled for transport to the theater. The entire show fills two semis, Nielsen said.
He will have three days to set it up before the first rehearsals. “I’m still working on the schedule, but we’ll probably be working around the clock,” he said.
And the load-in will be just the start of the planning.
Houston Ballet hosts several onstage, post-show VIP dinners during its run of “The Nutcracker.”
“The previous version wasn’t as big, so they could get caterers back there and set up dinner service in about 30 minutes,” Nielsen said. “They want me to do the same thing. So I’m figuring out how, 25 minutes after the show, I can clear the set and have a dinner party for 300 people.”