The Nutcracker

• By ROBIN MILLER
• Arts writer
• Published: Nov 29, 2009

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Audience members usually don’t notice at first.

Well, veteran audience members of Baton Rouge Ballet Theatre’s The Nutcracker: A Tale from the Bayou know what to expect at intermission, but they might not be thinking about it at the time.

They’re too immersed in the color and beauty of it all, the Christmas tree that suddenly grows bigger than life, the balloon that carries Clara into the Nutcracker’s Christmas world.

And then it happens. The snow. It starts falling on stage, then drifting into the audience.

“I remember sitting in the balcony the year before last,” Molly Buchmann said. “It’s always snowed in the audience, but it snowed in the balcony for the first time that year. And you should have heard the glee. You need to keep the snow in the balcony for each performance.”

She makes this suggestion to Curtis Appleby, operations manager for the River Center Theatre for the Performing Arts.

No, wait. He’s more than that.

“He’s our Uncle Drosselmeyer,” Buchmann said. “He’s the Uncle Drosselmeyer to the entire Baton Rouge community – he makes theater magic happen for everyone all year long.”

Uncle Drosselmeyer is the mysterious character who presents Clara with the Christmas present to top all Christmas presents — a nutcracker. And Buchmann? Well, she co-directs the ballet theater with Sharon Mathews.

Buchmann sits now on the edge of the River Center Theatre’s empty stage gazing at the balcony. It will be filled with Nutcracker fans for four performances Dec. 19-20, and yes, Appleby is planning for snowfall for the theater’s higher elevations.

“It’s a way for the performance to reach beyond the stage and make the audience part of what’s going on,” Appleby said.

And it only adds to the performances, which is Appleby’s intention.

“We want the audience to feel a part of what’s going on the moment they walk into the theater,” he said. “They see the snowflakes projected on the walls, and they hear the Christmas music. The CD we play is actually the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra’s recording of Christmas music.”