Growing up in small town Prestonsburg afforded many opportunities: snipe hunting, driving around Jerry's, the terror of driving down Archer Park hill, sneaking into Prestonsburg Drive In. Culture and the Arts were not part of my learning experience. When Jennifer Smith was in 7th grade, a stranger moved in to town. Her name was Jody Burton Shepherd and she was a dance teacher. Jennifer loved dance and immediately became one of Miss Jody's students. As the studio grew, and the MAC opened, Jody decided that we should put on a production of "The Nutcracker". Now Vicki Burke Brown and I would have jumped off the West Prestonsburg Bridge if Jody said we should, so we were on board with production. Imagine Lucy and Ethel trying to manage props, costumes all the while children of all ages leaping and turning and crying and needing to pee. Add to the chaos, Jody was pregnant with her first born (who will remain nameless) and due in mid December. So the day approaches for dress rehearsal and costume fittings. Jody had arranged for a costumer to come and help whip up beautiful garments, and he is supposed to arrive at 4pm. My phone rings bright and early and it was Jody. "He's here!" and I'm wondering why in the ding dong would a costumer be in Prestonsburg at 6 in the morning! Then the truth is spoken, "Not the costumer, the baby is here!" "HOLY CRAP!" is swirling in my head along with possible escape routes along with trying to get into the witness protection program. I had never even seen "The Nutcracker", let alone be the boss over it? Whatever will we do? So the afternoon races towards us like snarling mother bears. Soon we have to face countless mommies and daughters, each needing a costume, a hair bow, a doll; and needing to pee. Myself, I need a coke, a Sharpie, an clue to what the heck I'm to do; and I need to pee. I feel like a monster and everyone in the room is a torch wielding villager ready to climb my frame. "I don't know what I'm doing!", runs through my mind. Vicki, bless her heart, does know the play, but has a soft heart and a hard real job, so she can't be at the MAC during the day. So we press through the evening, trying to fit costumes, pin, sew, cut, glue, calm, soothe and pray. I think we left the MAC very late, running and ducking to our cars, sure that a mad mommy would pop us off with a huntin' rifle because we had kept everyone so late. As I lay in bed that night, numb feet and sore fingers, I just wanted to make Jody proud, but gosh I was so out of my element. The first performance day dawns and I have to don those headsets backstage and me, I mean ME, tell everyone what to do? How am I ever going to pull this off? It's time for the Matinee show to begin. Jilleyn Brown Darby, all 5 foot nothing of her, performing countless roles, is telling me what to do. "Just send Drosellmeyer" out when the music gets scary", she tells me. Now, scary is a word of degrees: some think a clown is scary, some think a clown with a hatchet is scary. I believe I am Barney Fife's long lost sister, scared or skerred of my own shadow, so right away I think the music sure sounds scary, and I push the actor out of the wing toward the stage. He turns and looks at me, "I don't think it's time" he mouths. Nonsense, scary music, GO! Well the look that Jill gives me sure IS scary! I have done screwed it up. Drosellmeyer is out there a full five minutes early. Luckily, the audience is, for the most part, as clueless as I am and the actors cover it up well. Drosellmeyer comes back eyeing me with his one unpatched eye, ready to take a wooden sword to my head. Somehow, someway we got through those first performances. The years have muddied together, so I am unsure of when other events happened. I believe it was the second year that Jody Burton Shepherd and I were shopping for a nutcracker and we found one at Big Lots. It's head had come apart in a clean detachment and we brokered a deal to buy him cheap. We used Velcro so he broke apart quite easily. During that first performance with him the classic tug of war over him begins. Oh, those two kids pull and tug, grunt and groan, quite a tussle! Suddenly the music reaches a crescendo and alas the nutcracker breaks, it's pieces fall to the floor. In the near quiet theater, we hear, "Oh no", and gasps uttered by some patrons totally into the scene (I've always believed that one was our mother). Again, back then, we may not have known the story, but we as a town were ready to embrace it. And embrace it we have! For years Dance Etc. performances of "The Nutcracker" have entertained thousands in the days before Christmas, allowing us each to enter a world of candy and soldiers, of mice and men, princes and princesses and of dreams and imagination. Thank you Jody Burton Shepherd, Jennifer Smith and all those wonderful dancers who fill our Christmas season with the magic of dance!
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