Radio City: Animal Orientation

As you may or may not know, the camels are the real stars of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. I'm talking real live camels, people! They travel to Bethlehem in the Nativity scene at the conclusion of the show.

Don't ask why I'm making that face.

The camels are not alone, however. The show also stars sheep and a donkey.

Since these animals are not exactly house pets, their handlers introduce them to the cast at Animal Orientation. Here are the things I have learned at Animal Orientation:
     * Sheep behave like dogs.
     * Donkeys like to eat French toast.
     * Camels' hips are way up on their backs, so they can kick you if you're standing anywhere in a six-foot radius.

The camels take a daily constitutional around the block.

Some very lucky (or unlucky, depending how you look at it) dancers play shepherds and get to stand with a sheep in Bethlehem, which earns them Animal Pay in their weekly paycheck. This is a real thing. Simply for standing there with leash in hand, they get extra dough. So in addition to learning animal facts and cautionary tales at Animal Orientation, they also get up close and personal with their sheep.

Even though we rehearse for at least four weeks, the animals only arrive the day of our final dress rehearsal. Why? They're pros. Ted the Camel has been doing the show for years. And loves it. I swear he even smiles and poses for pictures. He and the other two camels live in a little room (aptly named "The Camel Room") on the right side of the stage. The sheep and donkey live in a pen one level down from the stage; they ride the elevator up to the stage, hit their marks on stage during the show, and ride the elevator back downstairs. Seeing six sheep in an elevator is definitely a treat.

This year, Animal Orientation was set for Thursday at 2pm, but the camel truck broke down on the Thruway. So it was rescheduled for 10pm that night.

In case you're wondering, all of the above is completely true. I swear. Don't believe me? Take a gander at this little video I made in 2007.

"I can't. I'm in tech."

Ahhh, the joys of tech.

Never heard of it, you say? Then you must not have watched the so-bad-it's-good episode of Smash in which Karen told her live-in boyfriend that she couldn't decide if she wanted to get married because she's in tech.

Once an entire show has been taught and practiced in dance studios, the director and choreographer work with stage managers, designers, and other members of the crew to put the show on stage with lights, microphones, props, scenery, and more. This is a slooooooow process with a lot of stopping and starting. It often means very long hours and very little sleep.

We all moved into the Radio City theater yesterday. Because it's such a huge space (6,000 seats!), we are assigned different quadrants to lounge in--Rockettes are mid-house left, singers are lower house left, and dancers are upper house right. And lounge we do. When not working or watching others work, we chat, snack, play on our iPhones, and even write blogs.  :)

Where were we before this, you may wonder? Well, the Radio City stage is used for a ton of concerts (the JoBros sold the joint out two weeks ago), so it's off-limits for us during the early part of rehearsal. Because there are only two rehearsal studios in the building, neither of which is nearly as big as the actual stage, we rehearse in a church basement on Ninth Avenue. Seriously. It's a giant basement that is big enough to be divided into two stage-sized spaces, 4 common rooms, a lunch room, a music room, a physical therapy room, and several offices. There are sprung dance floors, soundproofing equipment, mirrors, and more. The amount of work that goes into transforming the basement for just a month of rehearsals is insane.

We started at the top of the show yesterday (Spoiler alert--it's a 3-D movie staring Santa Claus!), and after working 1pm-10pm yesterday and today, we are only at the fifth number in the show. Sometimes, I kind of hate tech. It's just so slow and boring. But there's something different about teching at Radio City. The house is just so huge and grand. It feels like a privilege to be here when it's virtually empty. It makes me feel like Annie when Daddy Warbucks takes her to the movies. I mean, how many other people get to do this?

Please remind me of this feeling in a few days. I'll probably have forgotten it by then.

Project Radio City

Well, folks, it's almost that time again: time to sing carols, trim the tree, and elbow your way past tourists in Rockefeller Center.

I was absolutely thrilled to began rehearsals for my fifth year in the Radio City Christmas Spectacular™ last week. But I was over the moon when I walked by the costume shop and saw this stunning design created by Project Runway's  Christopher Palu:

Now, in case you missed it, Heidi and Tim challenged the designers to create a dress for the Rockettes to wear at a future performance. While watching the episode, I thought that Christopher's idea and design were absolutely brilliant and well-executed--and utterly New York. I knew he would win the second I saw it.

But upon seeing the dress in real life, I must say that there are some flaws:
*The skirt has no movement, no give. So it won't be flattering when the girls kick.
*The trim outlining the buildings is hot glued on and is already crumbling.
*The design of the dress doesn't really allow for undergarments to be concealed.
*The flesh-colored material isn't supportive, which means the garment will begin to lose its shape the second the wearer puts it on.
*There isn't enough color contrast between the buildings and the fleshy material, making the buildings harder to distinguish.
*Even if there was more color contrast, the buildings wouldn't be visible to anyone past the tenth row. And Radio City is a 6,000-seat house.

My Nina-like critique is not to say that any of these flaws are Christopher's fault. I'm sure there are many, many challenges dance designers face when creating new costumes, and the Rockettes are an iconic brand performing in an incredibly unique space. There are few that would have succeeded in this challenge, given the time, resources, and requirements. Interestingly, after seeing the dress firsthand, I can't help but wonder if Dmitry's dress should have won.

Here's the big question: WHY WEREN'T THE ROCKETTES IN THE WORKROOM? They would have easily been able to communicate their needs to the designers, who would, in turn, have more information with which to create usable costumes. They also would have looked stunning on the runway. Perhaps the producers thought that might be setting the designers up to fail? Though they did give the designers a little lesson in dance.

I suspect that Christopher may not be able to claim his prize. Costume costs range from hundreds of dollars to thousands of dollars. Each. And there are 36 girls to costume. I'm not sure anyone would invest that much in a dress that will only be worn once to an unidentified event. So, I'm sorry, Christopher. I don't want you or your adorable Long Island family to be disappointed. But don't worry--I'm sure you have a well-dressed future ahead of you on the runway.

(Curious about how the other contestants fared? Check out this recap on EW.com.)