Excited for local production of The Nutcracker

We have to admit, writing about a performance of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker in August as we did in Friday’s edition felt strange.

First of all, The Nutcracker is a Christmas story and performances of the famous ballet are a yuletide tradition. The end of summer hardly seems the time to be thinking about it.

Secondly, as a rule, we almost never write about events like this four months in advance. If the goal is to let readers know about events so they can plan to attend, it seems to make more sense to let them know closer to the event so they don’t forget about it as the months roll on.

But, like the people we spoke to who are hoping to stage the production in December, we just could not contain ourselves.

It’s the same thing we felt when Valley Performing Arts decided to take on the Wizard of Oz. We covered that one pretty far in advance, too, talking to costumers and set painters and others involved in the production months before it finally hit the stage.

Why do we get so excited about these things? Well, to us, it’s a sign of our community coming into its own. Our local theater company is capable of taking on a big, important musical complete with flying monkeys and multiple sets. Our dance company can fill up a real, honest-to-goodness stage with a Nutcracker performance. (A stage, by the way, at Mat-Su College; yet another local institution that is slowly growing and maturing before our eyes. A stage that, we predict, will quickly become a valuable asset to our community.)

We can’t help but take pride in that.

And The Nutrcracker is no small thing. Ballet companies across the country perform it. The online encyclopedia Wikipedia cites San Francisco Examiner and New York Times articles to say that it is not uncommon for major ballet companies to earn 40 percent of their yearly revenue just from Tchaikovsky’s famous ballet.

The Nutcracker in Anchorage is an institution. There are people who work here who attend that performance as something of a family tradition. It’s a wonderful production, one that is well worth the trip.

And while we’re not saying that the two are competing with one another — Anchorage’s is in November, Mat-Su’s in December, plenty of people will attend and maybe even dance in both — isn’t there something special about a Mat-Su Nutcracker? Isn’t IT exciting to think about the idea of a local dance company staging such a performance with local actors and local dancers on a local stage?

We think so, and we hope that everything goes according to plan and that we get the opportunity to see our neighbors inhabiting the roles of sugar plum fairies and soldiers, flowers and snowflakes.

And, don’t worry, we’re sure we’ll have ample opportunity to remind you to mark your calendars as opening night approaches.