The next problem was the male leads. First, as he had warned, other commitments ate into the time Carl could devote to the company. Then delayed spring fever hit my eldest son. He was suddenly very serious about Alice Abodeely, one of my senior en pointe dancers. I think this might have been another effect of the emotionally charged anniversary of the Ring of Fire, but it made for some really good performances. Unfortunately, the romance and intimacy Joel put into his dances with Alice didn’t carry over to the other girls, and his performances with them became as stilted as when he danced with his sisters. The performances were technically proficient, but they lacked any spark.
Coming into June, I posted the proposed cast for the Nutcracker, and quickly ducked for cover. The male lead, Carl or Joel, was not a problem, my son Joseph as the Nutcracker and Nephew, again, no problem. It was the female roles that had mothers up in arms. It was bad enough I bracketed Joel’s girlfriend and my eldest daughter for the female lead. But when I put twelve year old Cathy McNally down as Clara, the second female lead, it was too much for some of the mothers.
Again Laurie Haggerty was to the forefront. She demanded to know why her Glenna Sue wasn’t playing Clara. She pointed out vigorously that her Glenna Sue could dance en pointe, unlike Cathy, who was still limited to demi-pointe. Before I could point out that Glenna Sue was needed for other roles the rest of the combative mothers waded in.
There were squabbles over whether their sons or daughters were to play mice or soldiers, who got which part in the Land of the Sweets dances, who got to wear what color costume in the party scenes and what order they appeared on stage. Even pettier was the squabble over what color doll the girls were to be given in the party scene.
Calm was only restored when Elisabeth Sofie asked what the problem was. Every mother knew just who Elisabeth Sofie was. In fact, she was a prime reason why some of the mothers were making such a fuss. They wanted their daughters, and in some cases, their sons, to be on the same side as the duchess.
I put my foot down and said that the leads and Sweets dances were nonnegotiable. I indicated that assignments for the party and fight scenes could be negotiated, but that if I couldn’t get the right numbers for each group, I would resort to random assignment. Which I’m sad to say, is what I ended up doing. Colored tokens were put into a couple of socks and everyone drew one to determine what color they would wear in the party scene, and drew again to determine whether they played the fight scene as either a mouse or a soldier.
Not everybody was happy with what they drew, so there was some trading of roles. It ended almost amicably, at least among the children. The mothers, well, if the children hadn’t been avidly watching, blood would have been spilled.
* * *
Of course I hadn’t put up all the roles, just those I intended to fill from my students. I was looking for a few parents to volunteer as party guests and either soldiers or mice, and for a few “props” for the en pointe dances in the Waltz of the Flowers. Joel and Duchess Elisabeth Sofie between them delivered a number of down-timers either training as officers or known to Elisabeth Sofie’s family who were not only willing to participate, but could actually dance. Not ballet of course, but they could move in time to music without tripping over themselves or their partners. Additionally, they knew the current courtly dances, which I was assured would fit nicely for the party scene. That was one less problem. With a number of men and even some women who knew the steps, the party scene should be a lot easier to produce than I had originally expected.
The icing on the cake was when a group of East Europeans came knocking on my door. They had seen the broadcast of Nutcracker and heard my appeal for people able and willing to put on a Russian-type dance for our production. They demonstrated one of their folk dances. It was impressive, very athletic, and reminiscent of what we consider “Cossack” dancing. With a little work it could be modified to fit the music. Then the women showed me their festival costumes. They were beautiful, such embroidery, and so much of it. Well, needless to say, that filled the Russian dance slot.
So I now had a cast. With roles allocated, the dancers settled to learning their parts. Meanwhile I got busy arranging costumes and sets. The first step was to announce on the television and radio that we were interested in any clothes people might want to donate. The call got a good response. Not only did we have people willing to give us some of their surplus cloth, clothes and stockings, but also some of the older women offered to help make and embellish the costumes.
Amongst the clothes we were given were quite a few colorful bridesmaids’ outfits. The sheer fabrics and vivid colors were perfect for costumes. Most of them had been sitting in their plastic wrappers since their one and only outing, having been buried deep in the darkest recesses of the bridesmaids’ closets, and their owners were only too happy to sacrifice them to a good cause.
Shoes, and more importantly, pointe shoes, had been solved over a year earlier. My uncle Mark had owned a local shoe shop for years. He had done a lot of shoe and boot repairs while he had the shop, and when he sold out, he spent his retirement repairing and making boots and shoes in his workshop. Of course I had taken advantage of the connection, and Uncle Mark had made and repaired dance shoes for my students and me for years. He hadn’t made pointe shoes of course, just the common dance slipper.
When I started teaching dance again after the Ring of Fire I asked him about making pointe shoes. He tried, he really did try, but they were little better than the torture devices I had worn when I was performing. They were better than nothing, but not by much.
Fortunately, Uncle Mark and Auntie Mary had taken in a refugee family. Either someone was thinking when they made the allocation, or God was watching. Hans Bauer and his son were shoemakers. The family had been on the run from marauding mercenaries when they stumbled into Granville with all their worldly goods and the tools of their trade piled into a handcart.
Not only did Hans and his son Jacob adapt easily to the up-time machines in Uncle Mark’s workshop, but also, Jacob was a bit of an innovator. He worked out a way to make a pointe shoe that lasted longer than the classical shoe, and gave the foot more support. They weren’t as good as the latest up-time pointe shoes, but they were much better than the torture devices I had danced in.
* * *
As we hit late September, things threatened to go to hell in a hand basket. There had been a major naval battle that had sunk most of the Dutch fleet, and we were now at war with France, Spain, Denmark and England. Nobody seemed to know what it all meant, but there were rumors of an upcoming battle raging through the town.
I was starting to worry what this could mean for my elder son Joel, so I made arrangements to visit the newlyweds. After their marriage in August, Joel and Alice had moved in with Casey Stevenson. There was no way Joel and Alice could afford to buy a house on their salaries, and renting their own place would have been crippling.
But anyway, there I was, walking down the road to visit Alice, when what did I see coming out the drive? That damn son of mine was actually riding a HORSE. The fool, didn’t he realize what damage he was doing? I just about sprinted after him, but first things first. Alice was expecting me, so I would see Alice first. Joel could wait.
It got worse. At the door, one of Alice’s friends, Noelle Murphy, literally dragged me into the house and frog marched me through to the lounge, where she pushed me towards the emotional mess that was my daughter-in-law before making her escape.
Alice was bitterly denouncing the army as the tears ran down her face. I had just missed Joel, she explained between sobs. He had just been around to tell her they were sending him to Fulda until further notice. This was a disaster. My worst nightmare was coming true. I’d been banking on having Joel available for the Nutcracker performance. Carl had been even less available than expected, often going missing for weeks at a time. Now it looked like I was going to lose Joel as well.
As Alice cried in my arms, I pondered the options. Either I rewrote the production without an en pointe Sugar Plum Fairy, or I bit the bullet, and ran my nephew Joe Calagna, as the Sugar Plum Fairy’s Cavalier. Either way, the dual parts of Soldier Doll and Mouse King would have to be redistributed.
Neither option was attractive. I really needed to have an en pointe dancer as the female lead. But to do that I needed someone strong enough to support, lift, and carry her. The trouble was there was only one male left in the company with sufficient technical ability who could lift Staci or Alice. And he made a statue look dynamic. Well, okay, my nephew, Joe isn’t really that bad. He could make the lifts look effortless, but I couldn’t hang a performance on his ability, not like I could Joel or Carl. I was just about in tears myself as I pondered what to do.
* * *
As if that wasn’t enough, I received a letter from Magdeburg, from Her Ladyship herself. Mrs. Admiral Simpson had apparently heard that I was planning on putting on a full-length performance of Nutcracker. Mary Simpson was suggesting that wouldn’t it be nice if, instead of only the one performance, I was to put on a short season in the high school auditorium. No more than a weekend’s worth of performances of course. She had already talked to any number of important people in Magdeburg, and they were all indicating a desire to see a live performance of a modern ballet.
I was horrified. I had heard that Mike Stearns had helped Tom Simpson’s parents be socially rehabilitated. It appeared that the rumors were true. There was little doubt that with Mike’s support, that if her ladyship put her mind to it, important people would be coming to Grantville to watch the performance of Nutcracker. I had met her type often enough before. Once started on their course they were unstoppable.
Now it seemed that my fledging company had better be able to put on a short season of ballet, or else life wouldn’t be worth living. As I said, I’ve met her type before. If you deliver what they want and expect, they can’t do enough for you. Fail to deliver to their expectations, and watch out. Nothing is more dangerous than a Society Matron who feels you have made her lose face amongst her contemporaries.
The postscript asking me to get in touch if I needed any help made me laugh. Need help? Of course I needed help. There was a world of difference between the friendly performance I had planned and what her ladyship wanted. There was no way I could put on the performances she wanted without Joel or Carl. Maybe she could use her influence to get Joel’s deployment deferred or postponed? And what about the expense? Who was going to pay for everything? And what about my performers?
It was one thing to plan a single performance among friends. However, to perform in front of the people Mary Simpson was proposing to bring to watch, I really needed the dancers to train more intensely. However, they couldn’t live on air. They had to earn a living. There was no way they could afford to increase the number of hours they spent training, not unless they were reasonably compensated for their time.
* * *
The first indication that someone was listening to my prayers appeared on my doorstep a few days after the battle at Wismar. In the days since I sent that desperate reply back to Mary Simpson there had been no order canceling Joel’s posting to Fulda, so I was desperate for some good news. And there he stood, waiting to come in for the regular practice session, as if he had never been away. I retaliated of course, pushing him throughout the session, trying to make him suffer as I had suffered for all those sessions he had missed. Carl didn’t turn a hair.
He also didn’t explain where he had been or what he had been doing. That didn’t matter, because he assured me that he would be available up until after the performances. I picked up on that. He seemed to have heard that instead of just the one performance originally planned, we were now going to be putting on a season of four performances. A smug smile and a tapping of his nose with his forefinger were all the answer I got.
Anyway, the girls were pleased to see him, especially Staci. She hadn’t been looking forward to performing the lead with her cousin, Joe. For that matter, Joe just about fell on Carl as well. He hadn’t been that enthusiastic about dancing the male lead himself. The class started to bubble. With Carl confirmed as the male lead there was a new confidence amongst the company.
* * *
I was deeply immersed in guiding the dancers through the Waltz of the Flowers when the music stopped suddenly. My first look was towards Deanna at the piano. She was looking towards the back of the hall. My eyes followed her gaze. There were visitors. After indicating to the class to take a breather I made my way to the group standing at the door. I had recognized Mary Simpson with that first glance, now I looked at her companions. There was nobody I recognized.
They were, judging by their style of dress, down-timers, and important ones at that. They were richly dressed, one of them really richly. I had thought that Duke Johann and his wife had been expensively dressed that first time I met them, but one of the ladies took conspicuous consumption to new levels. Acres of fine lace on top of a colorful batik style dyed silk overdress, with fine silk embroidery, in all the latest colors from Lothlorien Farbenwerke, and yes, gold and silver wire embroidery as well.
I quickly looked to where Elisabeth Sofie’s guardian usually sat, to see if she knew any of them. Apparently she did. The new Countess Emelie of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt was already on her feet and moving rapidly towards the visitors. Even as I snatched up my woolen cardigan and struggled to put it on she was sinking into a curtsey that would have put most of my students to shame.
As Countess Emelie rose and exchanged hugs with the most distinguished of the ladies I took my rapidly diminishing courage in my hands. I took a deep breath, straightened my back, and walked towards them, doing my best to glide gracefully along the floor. Anything to distract their attention from the tatty training sweats I was wearing.
With the down-time ladies clustered around Countess Emelie, I approached her ladyship, Mrs. Mary Simpson. “Who is the young lady?” she asked, nodding her head towards Countess Emelie.
“Countess Emelie, Count Ludwig Guenther of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt’s child bride. She’s staying close to Grantville for educational reasons. She’s also acting as guardian to her cousin Elisabeth Sofie. That’s why she’s here now. She’s waiting for class to finish.”
“Elisabeth Sofie?” Mary asked, obviously not sure who the young lady was.
I quickly searched the class. No, Elisabeth Sofie wasn’t around. She had probably already gone to shower and change. “The daughter of Duke Johan Philipp of Saxe-Altenburg. Really, I should have been more careful and said Duchess Elisabeth Sofie, but one of the perks of being her teacher is I can drop the title,” I replied smiling. “So, what can I do for you, Mrs. Simpson?”
“Mary, dear. Please call me Mary. I’m sure we’re going to be the best of friends, and friends should be on first name terms.”
Swallowing a bit, mainly because I didn’t see us ever being close friends, I invited her to call me Bitty. “Er, Mary, how can I help you?” I asked.
“My guests and I have come to Grantville for other reasons, but we would like to see how the performance is shaping up. Could you show them something from the ballet you are working on?”
“Well, we were going through the Waltz of the Flowers. I was just going to have them run through the dance when you arrived. It’s about seven minutes long, if you have the time.”
“Thank you, Bitty. I’m sure my companions would just love to see how the ballet is progressing. Come, I’ll introduce you to them.”
By the time we arrived at the group of down-time ladies Countess Emelie was chatting away with a younger woman. She turned when I arrived and smiled while she let Mary make the introductions.