FOR ELABORATE ‘NUTCRACKER’ SETS : ABT GIVES CENTER A GOOD REVIEW

American Ballet Theatre’s production of “The Nutcracker” ballet has arrived at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, filling the Segerstrom Hall stage with a 30-foot-tall Christmas tree, a chandeliered ballroom, a swirling sled and even a snow flurry or two.

To create ABT’s elaborate winter setting, at 3 a.m. on Monday, nearly 60 workers started unloading the dance troupe’s five, five-ton trucks at the Center, installing a portable dance floor and almost 20 separate pieces of scenery. Working around the clock, the workers had the stage ready about 16 hours later for the company’s first rehearsal with full scenery. (Performances of “The Nutcracker” continue through Sunday.)

ABT’s production manager Dan Butt, who has installed the production into some of the country’s largest theaters, gives the facility a good review.

The Center’s loading dock is “ideal,” Butt said. “You can back three trailers (the vans for transporting scenery and equipment) in at once, which means you can unload three at a time. We did two at a time. These are obviously small things to some people, but they’re important to us. Sometimes it takes 20 minutes to unload one truck. Here it took us five.”

“Nutcracker” scenery includes a 40-foot-long ramp used as an exit for corps de ballet “Snowflakes,” eight drops (or painted curtains) and four tall wooden sections, each about 16 feet high and 12 feet long that form one huge room. These wooden pieces either “fly” toward the ceiling or roll offstage when the towering, two-piece Christmas tree, trimmed with electric lights and festive ornaments, grows to its full height.

“Our backdrop scenery is generally 40 feet high and it has to fly completely out of sight,” said Butt, who has worked with the ballet company for about 12 years. “It’s common for theater grids not to be high enough.”

Butt also had praise for the Center’s backstage design, which he says allows for easy loading onto the stage.

”. . .You don’t have to push things a long distance to get them where they belong. That can save a couple of hours on a load-in or load-out--and that saves money,” he said.

Though about half of the 57-member crew that installed ABT’s sets and scenery was hired just for installation, Philip Mosbo, the Center’s technical operations director, said that the New York City Ballet employed only a 32-member crew during its October engagements. Mosbo said the troupe’s scenery included “only a few drops, legs and boarders,” or curtains which hang from either side of the stage or over the dancers’ heads.

Monday morning Butt and crew had to start preparing the Segerstrom Hall stage for their first rehearsal immediately after another crew had finished clearing the stage from a Sunday night orchestral performance. Then, the stage had to be reset for a dress rehearsal--with lights and costumes--less than one day later.

Working regularly on such a schedule, Butt doesn’t like surprises in backstage apparatus or design when he comes to a new venue. “There is really nothing unique about the theater, which is kind of good,” he noted.

With a final nod of approval, Butt said the troupe’s dress rehearsal went smoothly, despite a few glitches. Those included an uneven unraveling of the Christmas tree--though Butt said the stage provided ample space for the ballet’s most complex scenery change--and a sluggish artificial snow drift.

“But it wouldn’t be any fun unless we had something to do,” he said with an easy laugh.