Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Rockettes are still hot!

I worked at Radio City Music Hall a few years ago and have seen many incarnations of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. For awhile, it was very "heavy" on the traditionalt Nativity but recently I attended the 2009 edition and noticed they've cut the Nativity a bit...most wouldn't notice. It still has the 3 camels, 2 burros and a smattering of sheep, as well as the entire Radio City chorus decked out in the drag of ancient times a la Cecil B. DeMille. They cut the reading of One Solitary Life to make room for yet another Rockette number...a grand finale. One criticism of the show was that there was never a proper curtain call....you want to cheer for everybody after 90 minutes of breathless spectacle and endless costume changes. SO THEY FINALLY added a curtain call and it's a real crowd-pleaser. My favorite number is still the dance number with 500 dancing Santas.
Several weeks ago I got a telephone call out of the blue from a former Rockette who I used to hang out with when I worked at the Music Hall...she now is married and settled with a family in Florida. Her name is Lois and she told me she misses being a Rockette dreadfully-- "especially at this time of year!"