A story in yesterday’s Boston Globe continued the saga of Boston Ballet’s Nutcracker production. As faithful readers will recall, the Wang Center announced last November that they’d be bumping the Ballet’s blockbuster to replace it with the touring Radio City Christmas Spectacular (here’s my original entry on the subject, and a follow-up).
It seems the Boston production did record business this season, pulling in 139,620 people for a total take of $6.6 million. That’s a 30 percent bump in attendance over last year, and the highest dollar volume on record for the company.
Apparently, all the hullabaloo over the Wang’s decision, and the resulting media attention, spiked the interest and angst of Boston citizens. Despite the volume, the Wang Center is sticking to its decision, and the Boston Ballet is looking for another home for 2004.
Meanwhile in Denver, the animal rights group PETA made plans to demonstrate outside of Colorado Ballet’s production of the holiday classic, hoping to educate young attendees about their mommy’s fur coat. Here’s a charming description of the flyer they planned to use:
The comic-book-style leaflet shows a woman stabbing a rabbit with a bloody knife. The caption reads: ‘Ask your mommy how many animals she killed to make her fur coat.’
Colorado Ballet will also be competing with the touring Rockettes production in 2004. So I’m sure they were thrilled with the attention.
