Sugar plum fairies dance at Bedell

Some things just scream Christmas, and none do it louder than the music of "The Nutcracker."

The Moscow Ballet recently brought the show to Bedell Performance Hall for a two-night gig. I had the unexpected pleasure of receiving three tickets to Monday's opening performance and loved it.

The costumes, the music, the dancers -- their calves! It was great, and I hope you got to see it, too. I'm told that Monday night shows typically draw a smaller crowd in most venues, no matter what the show may be. As evidence, there were plenty of designated "coat seats" at the show. The River Campus reported selling only 579 tickets for Monday night. The weather may have further hampered attendance. By Tuesday afternoon they had sold 731 for that night's production, so it seems that by people had gotten over their initial fear of Mondays and winter weather.

With my two extra tickets, I took my Local and also a friend for his birthday.

It seems that after being told for more than 100 years, the story of the Nutcracker would get old. There's a party. They dance. The kids get gifts. The brother breaks his sister's nutcracker. She goes to bed upset and then the fun starts. She dreams the Nutcracker is alive and they fight the Mouse King and go to the land of the Sugar Plum Fairy and see the different dances of the different countries, and they dance and sometimes the Nutcracker turns out to be the godfather's nephew and they get married, and oh man, was I a wide-eyed little kid Monday night.

I wasn't the only one. Jeff Breer, a sports editor here at the paper, sat with us to watch his daughter on stage with the Moscow Ballet. Whenever his daughter Lindsey scurried onstage as one of the mice in the Mouse King's army, the proud father would poke the birthday boy and point her out.

Lindsey was one of about 50 local dancers who got to play dress-up with the professional ballet company Monday and Tuesday. That's sort of what the River Campus and its facilities are all about: giving students top-notch stage experience.

And they did great. No doubt we'll eventually see the little ones onstage become big ones onstage. Until then, they can cherish their recent experience dancing in the Land of the Sugar Plum Fairy, and I'll go on arguing about what in the world a sugar plum is exactly.