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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class, a production

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Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Tracy V.

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Speaker 1: Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. We talked about the Nutcracker

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Speaker 1: on the show this week. Sure enough something I've watched

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Speaker 1: a bunch of times and you have danced in a

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Speaker 1: bunch of times. That is correct. Has your experience as

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Speaker 1: a dancer the Nutcracker given you strong opinions about how

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Speaker 1: the Nutcrackers should be staged? Because I sure have them. No,

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Speaker 1: In fact, I like seeing all the variations a whole lot.

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Speaker 1: I remember as a kid, I had a unique experience

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Speaker 1: in that I was part of a ballet company that

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Speaker 1: was kind of in its infancy, and I was part

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Speaker 1: of the ballet school there, and so I started out

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Speaker 1: doing it one way, and then the ballet company, as

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Speaker 1: it reached a certain level, got a new artistic director

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Speaker 1: that was much more experienced. And that person came in

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Speaker 1: and was like, what have you been doing? And really

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Speaker 1: went back like they were doing much more of like

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Speaker 1: an original interpretation of it, which I didn't realize, and

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Speaker 1: then it flipped and became much more akin to the

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Speaker 1: Balanchine version, And so I already have that like, oh

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Speaker 1: you can actually do this different ways kind of mentality

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Speaker 1: about it. So I've always liked seeing how other people

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Speaker 1: did it. Yeah, the things that I feel really strongly

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Speaker 1: about some of them or are more minor than others.

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Speaker 1: I really want the Christmas tree to physically get bigger,

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Speaker 1: and I will say I have that is a thing

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Speaker 1: that has to happen. I also really want the Grandfather

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Speaker 1: clock to like menace Clara in some way. We need

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Speaker 1: a growing Christmas tree, we need a menacing clock. I

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Speaker 1: really prefer it when Clara and the Nutcracker prints are

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Speaker 1: both children who are on the stage the whole time.

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Speaker 1: I don't like it when they murdered the Clara role

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Speaker 1: and the sugar plum Ferry role. It's just my own

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Speaker 1: personal preference. Um, and I didn't even really realized that

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Speaker 1: they're just In terms of choreography, that's like stretching back

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Speaker 1: to nineteenth century Russia. I did not know that there

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Speaker 1: was this uh schism between like traditional dressed as peasants

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Speaker 1: or Cossacks, Russian dancers and hoops. I really like the

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Speaker 1: like very athletic, leaping, jumping Russian dance as it is

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Speaker 1: often staged and the first time that I saw one

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Speaker 1: with the hoops, I was like, what was that? Not?

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Speaker 1: I was not pleased. I think I saw hoops first. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I had already written this outline and I watched the uh,

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Speaker 1: the Marie Sendak version that we talked about, um, and

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Speaker 1: that one just totally changed a bunch of stuff. Is

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Speaker 1: totally different in that in a way that I thought

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Speaker 1: was pretty cool, Like, instead of what I grew up with,

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Speaker 1: which was, uh, the Arabian dance, basically a harem not

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Speaker 1: a great thing to be having on the stage right now,

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Speaker 1: it is instead a beautiful bird um, which I felt

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Speaker 1: like was a lot better. But my husband was in

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Speaker 1: the room with me and we got to the end

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Speaker 1: of the ballet and he was like, where were the Russians?

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Speaker 1: They were there, just looked a little different. I used

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Speaker 1: to get really frustrated by like the local additions two things,

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Speaker 1: And part of it was when I was living in Atlanta.

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Speaker 1: The Atlanta Ballet had a panda bear costume and celebration

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Speaker 1: of the panda at the zoo that had been born,

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Speaker 1: and a dancer got very badly hurt, and I got

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Speaker 1: really angry about it because I was like, there's not

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Speaker 1: even supposed to be a panda in the Nutcracker. But

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Speaker 1: having researched this and realized, like, how many places really

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Speaker 1: kind of are adding their own local touches, I don't

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Speaker 1: I'm no longer so angry about that, as long as

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Speaker 1: the costume is safe for the dancers to be dancing it, right, right?

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Speaker 1: Do you have a favorite of the Kingdom of Sweets

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Speaker 1: or a favorite segment of the ballet period? I have

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Speaker 1: always really loved the snowflakes just before the end of

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Speaker 1: act line beautiful, that music is beautiful. That yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: another thing. There needs to be real snow happening on

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Speaker 1: the stage as a dancer. That's a no. I just

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Speaker 1: always found it dangerous now that you mention it, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean when you think about how much time I

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Speaker 1: mean this, this happens with any performance space, right, how

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Speaker 1: much time dancers like kind of prep their shoes to

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Speaker 1: be the way they like and have the level of

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Speaker 1: grip that they like. And then often you get in

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Speaker 1: a performance space and it's not like the space you

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Speaker 1: have been practicing in it all, and so to throw

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Speaker 1: another element in there is like, oh, for heaven's sakes, what, yeah, Okay,

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Speaker 1: how are we gonna have to how are we going

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Speaker 1: to deal with this substance on the stage. So for me,

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Speaker 1: I'm always like, that's okay, I don't need the snow

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Speaker 1: because I just think about those poor dancers being like

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Speaker 1: how much do I have to restrain the steps to

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Speaker 1: make sure I don't slip or Now. I'm sure lots

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Speaker 1: of companies have a way that they manage it that

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Speaker 1: makes it very, very safe. I don't want to make

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Speaker 1: it seem like people are being willy nilly, but there's

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Speaker 1: just always any time you add an element that's not

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Speaker 1: part of rehearsal. Sure, obviously they rehearse with all the

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Speaker 1: tech stuff, that's what a tech rehearsal is for, but

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Speaker 1: like it's still like a whole difference. You're still learning

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Speaker 1: it without that. Yeah, just as my time as an

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Speaker 1: audience member, like never never saw anything go wrong with

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Speaker 1: the snow part. What I did see the last time

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Speaker 1: I saw the Nutcracker, which was here in Boston, during

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Speaker 1: the scene where the children fight over the nutcracker and

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Speaker 1: the nutcracker breaks, a part of the nutcracker flew into

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Speaker 1: the orchestra pit, and it it was like that scene

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Speaker 1: in the Lord of the rings when they knocked the

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Speaker 1: bucket down into the well. It went on for so

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Speaker 1: long of this piece of nutcracker rickiching all around the

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Speaker 1: orchestra pit. Uh And during intermission, like as the as

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Speaker 1: the orchestra was filing out, I saw somebody with this

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Speaker 1: nutcracker piece in their hand, and I was like, man,

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Speaker 1: that's I have seen. I've seen a clear as shoe

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Speaker 1: go into the orchestra pit before, but like this was

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Speaker 1: the loudest, most most disruptive orchestra pit incidents. That's funny.

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Speaker 1: Of the sweets, I always really loved coffee, and I

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Speaker 1: had seen it primarily for a long time, not as

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Speaker 1: a harem style, but as like a pod to do

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Speaker 1: like a duet. Okay, that was just I find that

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Speaker 1: music very, very beautiful, and it's one of those things

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Speaker 1: where if the right dancer is cast and the choreography

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Speaker 1: is right, it just becomes this incredibly beautiful, languid study

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Speaker 1: of like what the human body can do with somebody

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Speaker 1: who is an absolute maestro at managing their own limbs,

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Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Um, And so for me,

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm like, as a kid the first time I

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Speaker 1: really saw it, danced beautifully. I was like gobsmacked. I

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Speaker 1: swear I literally had like the mouth a gape, like

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Speaker 1: what wonder was that? Um? And so as that has,

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Speaker 1: you know, as I've gotten older and that becomes a

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Speaker 1: thing that is more critically examined, it's there's that part

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Speaker 1: of me that's like, oh, I wish it could. I

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Speaker 1: don't want ever to see a woman in a Harem style,

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Speaker 1: but like I just I wish I could divorce all

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Speaker 1: of the critical and necessary critical thinking about it and

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Speaker 1: just retain that wonder of youth. But that is the

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Speaker 1: unfortunate thing about being a thoughtful right, not that I'm

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Speaker 1: always but I know the School of the Arts has

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Speaker 1: updated a lot of their choreography and I don't know, uh,

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Speaker 1: like I have seen I feel like a televised production

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Speaker 1: with newer choreography once from the North Carolina school Yards,

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Speaker 1: and I do not know the details of how it

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Speaker 1: has been updated. But when I was a child, it

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Speaker 1: was very problematic, like the Arabian dance was. It was

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Speaker 1: a very Harem scenario. There was a hookah involved. Um.

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Speaker 1: The Chinese dancers had like the the like the stereotypical

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Speaker 1: ballet posture of having their index fingers raised, so I

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Speaker 1: definitely that. Yeah, the Spanish one was like very very

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Speaker 1: like castanets, kind of like a Flamenco situation um, and

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Speaker 1: then the Russian dancers would bring the house down with

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Speaker 1: their leaping up in the air and doing splits and that.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, like looking in hindsight at the way those

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Speaker 1: were staged when I was a kid, I'm like, yikes.

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Speaker 1: I have also always had deep, deep funness for Waltz

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Speaker 1: of the Flowers. I just love that. I love everything

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Speaker 1: about it beautiful When I was a child and I

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Speaker 1: wanted to take piano lessons, but I also did not

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Speaker 1: have the discipline to practice. That was I think that

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Speaker 1: was the piece that finally led to me not doing

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Speaker 1: piano anymore because I wanted to. I wanted to learn

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Speaker 1: Walts of the Flowers for my piano recital, and like

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Speaker 1: what was available was harder than I really I could

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Speaker 1: have done it if I had really applied myself to it,

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Speaker 1: but it was just harder enough that I didn't want to.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, that's like another nod to help my deep

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Speaker 1: love of the Nutcracker as a child. I picked my

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Speaker 1: piano recital piece as a thing that came from The Nutcracker. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's funny. As you're doing this, my brain it was

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Speaker 1: like flashback after flashback, Like I remember, you know, being

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Speaker 1: huddled under Mother ginger skirt one year, and how sort

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Speaker 1: of thrilling and delightful that one was to perform as

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Speaker 1: a kid like that was when everybody wanted to do.

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Speaker 1: I started out as a mouse. I was low tier initially,

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Speaker 1: and then like you know, following years, I got to

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Speaker 1: be one of Mother Ginger's children and then eventually got

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Speaker 1: to do Um. I was part of the core for

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Speaker 1: the Snowflakes and the Flowers and did some of the

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Speaker 1: acting parts in the first act that were that were

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Speaker 1: minor characters. But after that, I um developed if my

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Speaker 1: body was not good at bealt anymore. Oh yeah, puberty

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Speaker 1: pretty much ended my my plot for ballet. But um yeah,

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Speaker 1: I still think about it so lovingly in many ways,

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Speaker 1: even though it was, um you know, sometimes grueling to

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Speaker 1: work on those shows. But I don't know, I credit

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Speaker 1: the years that I did The Nutcracker, particularly the early years,

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Speaker 1: with really being a pretty influential aspect of like my

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Speaker 1: love of the visual arts in general, theatricality. Like, right,

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Speaker 1: I remember the first time during a tech rehearsal that

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Speaker 1: the tree worked and being like, oh, wow, you can

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Speaker 1: do some cool stuff in a theatrical setting that really

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Speaker 1: impacts people. Well, that is neat and I want to

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Speaker 1: always have this in my life. Like that was a

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Speaker 1: big um. I literally remember the tree jerking and not

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Speaker 1: working and then working and being like, oh, success looks amazing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah cracker, um did you see? Oh they may do

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Speaker 1: it still. I haven't checked for it in several years,

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Speaker 1: but they used to do for a while, at least

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Speaker 1: on our local PBS station, a thing where they had

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Speaker 1: several nights of Nutcracker that were different iterations of it.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, but that sounds really cool. It was

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Speaker 1: amazing because you would have the very traditional balancing style

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Speaker 1: you would have like one that I saw, and I

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Speaker 1: don't I feel terrible because I cannot remember um to

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Speaker 1: attribute credit who choreographed it or even what company was,

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Speaker 1: but it was very modern and I remember thinking, I

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Speaker 1: don't know that this will work, because as much as

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Speaker 1: I said I love seeing different versions, they're still for

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Speaker 1: me it's very much rooted in like traditional ballet. So

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Speaker 1: to be like, oh, a modern dance version, no, but

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Speaker 1: in fact it was amazing. So so if you get

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Speaker 1: a chance to see something like that, especially when you

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Speaker 1: see like three different ones in three nights, it just

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Speaker 1: kind of expands how you think about it, and like

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Speaker 1: how different people can take a thing in the kernel

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Speaker 1: of the thing remains the same, but like it blossoms

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Speaker 1: in different ways and that's always really beautiful. Yeah, we

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Speaker 1: love it, we do, we do. We did some more

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Speaker 1: eponymous foods this week we did. I love these, They're

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Speaker 1: so fun, but I definitely have some thoughts about Salvester Graham.

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Speaker 1: But I do want to mention that I love a

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Speaker 1: good caesar salad so so um. Last time we did

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Speaker 1: one of these, I said, I like all the component

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Speaker 1: parts of a Cops salad, but I don't think I've

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Speaker 1: ever ordered a Cobs salad from a restaurant menu. Opposite

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Speaker 1: experience with Caesar salad. But it's embarrassing because, uh, at

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Speaker 1: two different periods of my life, one in high school

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Speaker 1: into college and then the other not that long after college.

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Speaker 1: For periods of years, I was a vegetarian, and let

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Speaker 1: me tell you, vegetarian options in sin on the ground

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Speaker 1: they were not like they are today. Correct. Um, And

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Speaker 1: so in the nineteen nineties. If I were in a

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Speaker 1: situation where I needed to get a meal at Matt

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Speaker 1: mcdonne olds, what I would get was a caesar side

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Speaker 1: salad which did not have chicken or anything on it.

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Speaker 1: I would like leave the bacon bits. I think it

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Speaker 1: came with, not put the bacon bits on there, and

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Speaker 1: French fries. There's two problems with this scenario. Problem number

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Speaker 1: one is that caesar dressing a lot of the times

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Speaker 1: has worcesters or sauce in it which contains anchovies that

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Speaker 1: is not vegetarian. And the other thing is we learned

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Speaker 1: as a society after all of this that McDonald's French

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Speaker 1: fries were flavored with beef flavoring, a thing I did

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Speaker 1: not know when I was shoving them into my face,

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Speaker 1: and that's why they were so delicious. It's one of

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Speaker 1: many things that I thought I was eating as a

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Speaker 1: vegetarian option in my teams in early twenties that I

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Speaker 1: learned later we're not actually vegetarian. But man, I think

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Speaker 1: that's embarrassing. I think a lot of people are in

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Speaker 1: that boat still do love a caesar salad. Nough me too,

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Speaker 1: I am I need a little more protein than a

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Speaker 1: blank Caesar offers, I gotta have some chicken or something

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Speaker 1: on that. Yeah, stop shrimp on there. I like it.

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Speaker 1: I sometimes will just throw also, um, like a handful

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Speaker 1: of stachios in there. Probably mortify Caesar Cardini. But how

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Speaker 1: do you feel about the anchovies. I'm down with anchovis.

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Speaker 1: I love them. Yeah. I love an anchovy on a pizza.

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Speaker 1: I love an anchovy right out of the camp. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I know they're not for everybody, but I love them. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm into them. The first time I had them, I

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Speaker 1: was on a Caesar salad, I'm pretty sure, and I

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Speaker 1: just did it for kicks, and I was like, oh,

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Speaker 1: this is actually pretty good. I um. The first time

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Speaker 1: I ate anchovies I remember super distinctly because it was

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Speaker 1: one of those times that very clearly illustrates how if

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Speaker 1: kids have no knowledge of a thing, they just will

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Speaker 1: engage with it without And I had found in our

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Speaker 1: cupboard when I was like little six or seven a

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Speaker 1: can of anchovies, and I just popped it open and

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Speaker 1: ate them. And one of my older sisters came in

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Speaker 1: and discovered this and was like, WHOA, Like, I may

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Speaker 1: as well have been eating live spider. She was horrified

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Speaker 1: and I was like, what, they're salty and delicious, And

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Speaker 1: so that was just one of those things where I

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Speaker 1: was like, I loved anchovies from a barrier um, and

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Speaker 1: I continued, man, anchovies on pizzas where it's at delicious.

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Speaker 1: But really, I have so many thoughts about Sylvester Graham. Yes,

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Speaker 1: it really does remind me a lot of John Harvey

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Speaker 1: Kellogg in terms of his mentality and the focus on

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Speaker 1: food going along with Yeah that um, they're often UM

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Speaker 1: kind of mentioned together as being part of that beginning

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Speaker 1: of the movement for for people to really carefully monitor

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Speaker 1: and um edit with their diet consisted of UM, which

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Speaker 1: I have to say, like living by Sylvester graham standards

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Speaker 1: made you live a long life. I'm not sure how

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Speaker 1: much you enjoyed it along the way. Yeah, there's also

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Speaker 1: the whole like beyond beyond the aspects of it that

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Speaker 1: are the idea of weight loss, there's like this whole

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Speaker 1: trend about the idea of food being clean or not clean.

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Speaker 1: It's really damaging to people. And I like this is

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Speaker 1: to me as an early iteration of that kind of

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Speaker 1: a dramatic iteration. I mean, like the level of morality

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Speaker 1: that he attached to every morsel of person consumes is

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Speaker 1: so extreme, and I just find myself wondering if he

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Speaker 1: was any fun to be around ever. I mean, he

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Speaker 1: clearly had some pretty serious hang ups about sexuality that

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Speaker 1: are unfortunate. You know. I also kind of I had

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Speaker 1: to chuckle at his whole excerpt that we read where

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Speaker 1: he talks about how bakers are the ruination of things,

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Speaker 1: and he's like, I don't want to bad mouth anybody,

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Speaker 1: but here we go like, no, no, they're everyone's really evil,

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Speaker 1: but let me just focus on bakers and everything they

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Speaker 1: do wrong. And you know, it's one of those things

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Speaker 1: where I'm like, is that really moral to just publicly

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Speaker 1: go after an entire sect of the population based on

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Speaker 1: their job. I don't know, Mr Morality, Maybe think about

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Speaker 1: that for a minute. Yeah, it seems very unpleasant. I

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Speaker 1: want a cozy bed, I want a warm shower, thank you.

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Speaker 1: I want to eat some s'mores just for spite. At

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Speaker 1: this point, I know we have told this story before,

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Speaker 1: but I kept thinking about there was an incident with

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Speaker 1: Tracy and Iron Smores Dear listeners when we were still

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Speaker 1: working in an office on like the how Stuff Works

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Speaker 1: website and Tracy was for you. I don't remember editorial directors,

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Speaker 1: website director, I don't remember what your title was. And

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Speaker 1: I was one of the editors. And we were like

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Speaker 1: the only two people working during the holidays. Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: was like over Christmas and everybody was off, and I

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Speaker 1: was out of vacation days I was working, and and

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Speaker 1: I hadn't worked for the company all that long, so

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Speaker 1: I either didn't or I just figured I'd work through

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Speaker 1: the holidays and use vacation at other times. But we

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Speaker 1: had this idea of, like, if we're going to be

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Speaker 1: here at the office together and nobody else is here,

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Speaker 1: we should at least make it fun. And so we

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Speaker 1: made the most ridiculous s'mores of all time, which were

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Speaker 1: Graham crackers, but then, um, if you have ever had

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Speaker 1: Coco peeps shaped like reindeer, yep, I highly recommend. And

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Speaker 1: then we used peppermint bark for the chocolate layer. And

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Speaker 1: I know people say the sugar high is a myth,

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Speaker 1: but we ran around those hallways screeching like banshees for

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Speaker 1: a good fifteen minutes, and I'm like, that's a sugar

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Speaker 1: high right there. That's so good. We did them in

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Speaker 1: a microwave, so we didn't have a stove or anything

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Speaker 1: in the office, so we got to watch them explode.

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Speaker 1: It was beautiful. Yeah, that is one of my fondest

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Speaker 1: work memories of all time, Like just so funny and

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Speaker 1: hilarious that we were just giddy to eat s'mores while

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Speaker 1: everyone else ha ha was off. Uh. Yeah. Yeah. We

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Speaker 1: talked about recreating them, and I don't think we ever

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Speaker 1: did the recreation of them, in part because I started

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Speaker 1: trying to take time off at the end of the year.

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Speaker 1: Right well, at some point when we are back in

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Speaker 1: the same place, I don't care what time of year

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Speaker 1: it is, We're going to car Base Moors. We're gonna

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Speaker 1: make it great. Yeah. If you are headed into a weekend,

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Speaker 1: a weekend that involves time off, we hope that it

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Speaker 1: is fun and that you eat something delicious, uh and

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Speaker 1: that you love. And if you do not have time off,

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Speaker 1: we hope you still manage to sneak in some delicious food,

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Speaker 1: but also that it goes as smoothly as possible. We

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Speaker 1: will be right back here tomorrow with a classic and

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Speaker 1: then on Monday with a brand new episode. Stuff you

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Speaker 1: missed in his Trenck class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit

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Speaker 1: the i heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you

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Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows. H