"Like many Fritz’s before and after me, I had a crush on my Clara and I couldn't remember ANY of the choreography."

My earliest memory of the Nutcracker is sitting with my fifth grade class in the Community Center Theatre. As an 11 year-old, the sheer size of the theater was overwhelming. Then the show started. I had never seen anything like it. My only frame of reference was what little I’d seen on T.V. so nearly everything involved in the Ballet from the back drops to the dancing was completely foreign to me. I remember feeling absolutely hypnotized before the prologue scene had even come to an end. The precision and sharpness of the Columbine, Vivandier,  and Soldier dolls in Act I was so difficult for me to grasp. I couldn't tell at first if they were actually dolls or human beings.

What also caught my attention right off the bat was the fact that there were so many children involved with the show. Two little boys in the party scene stood out to me. One of the little boys, “Kilt Boy” was a scrawny little pipsqueak who wore a kilt (that little boy, Aaron Bahadursingh would eventually become my best friend) and the other little boy, “Fritz” was a snotty little child who broke Clara’s Nutcracker. I knew immediately that I wanted to be a part of it, but the idea of DANCING on a stage with those costumes, make up and set pieces seemed so unrealistic to me that I didn't give it much thought. It wasn't until a few months after the performance when my mother approached me and asked if I wanted to audition, that the idea of taking part in “The Nutcracker” actually began to come into fruition. So I went in and auditioned. I wanted to be one of the two boys I remembered from the year before. I knew “Fritz” was a bigger part, but “Kilt Boy” got to wear a kilt! Since I’d seen the ballet, I had a sort of vague idea of what the character Fritz was… I just needed to go in there and act like a brat. I was good at that. That audition was huge for me. There were so many other little boys who were the same age as I was. Many of them had been a part of “The Nutcracker” for years and some of them, like me, had no idea what they were doing. For the first time in my life, I felt very small and VERY nervous.  At the end of the audition, Ron Cunningham began to sit all of us children down into three different  group formations. Each group was a different cast; A, B and C. I was placed in the middle of the “B Cast” formation. Ron sat me down and I quickly found out from the other children that I had been placed in the “Fritz” spot. I have to admit, I was a little disappointed that I wasn't going to get to wear a kilt.

My experience as “Fritz” was incredible. Like many Fritz’s before and after me, I had a crush on my Clara and I couldn't remember ANY of the choreography. I remember walking up to Ron after one rehearsal and telling him, “Well, Mr. Cunningham… it can only get better”. But what was really special to me was getting to meet all of the professional dancers. They were rock stars to me. There were two male dancers, Michael Vester and Easton Smith who impacted me the most. As a kid I was fascinated by Michael Jackson and spent much of my free time teaching myself how to moonwalk. This amused Michael and Easton and they asked me to share my dance moves with them. I now know that they were just being nice and probably didn't even really care too much about learning how to moonwalk, but all of the time they spent talking and joking with me back stage and in rehearsals made me feel  SO COOL. That was what made me want to continue performing. I went through all of my performances never knowing if I did the steps right and even got a special cameo role in “The Nutty Nutcracker” as a moonwalking party kid after Ron saw me practicing my Michael Jackson moves the with professionals. I still wasn't too excited about dancing, but everything from being onstage, to the costumes, to the massive backstage area, to my friendships with the dancers inspired me to pursue Musical Theatre- something I thought I had much more of a knack for.

It took me several years after “The Nutcracker” to finally commit to taking ballet classes. I was able to take a 45 minute ballet class a day at my high school, but that was it. My teacher, Shirin Kayani-Rose had a very successful career as a dancer and urged me to take elsewhere.  I had tried taking drop- ins at a couple different schools around Sacramento, but I was far to insecure to ever stay anywhere longer than a couple of days. From the time I first performed in “The Nutcracker” until age fifteen, I’d invested nearly all of my time into Musical Theatre. However, the day finally came where I was too old for children’s casting calls and I had to attend general dance auditions for shows. The day I attended the dance auditions for Music Circus was the day I decided that Shirin was right. I NEEDED to begin dance training somewhere other than school if I wanted to pursue Musical Theatre with any sort of success. A few months later, my mom enrolled me in the Sacramento Ballet’s summer intensive.

 I began training with the Sacramento Ballet in the summer of 2007. It was by far the most difficult, humbling three weeks of my life. I found out at the end of the summer that Ron wanted to allow me the opportunity to perform in “The Nutcracker” as a Big Mouse and Side Russian. Those two roles were not large roles at all, but they were mine and I was proud to perform them because I had earned them. They inspired me to continue to pursue Ballet as a career and to work toward larger, more pivotal roles onstage. Since then, I have since performed both character and dancing roles in “The Nutcracker” such as Grandfather, Soldier Doll, Spanish, Chinese, and for the first time this year, the Nutcracker.

 It seems like such a short time ago that I watched offstage in my ridiculous mouse costume (which, yes, I STILL have to perform in when I’m not the Nutcracker) in awe of people like John Speed Orr, Timothy Coleman, John Whisler, Colby Damon, Roberto Cisneros, and even my good friend/coworker Rex Wheeler as they danced the role of “The Nutcracker”. Although I always worked toward it, I honestly never thought that one day I would be the one flying across stage with Clara in that hot air balloon, or spitting fake bits of bitter paper snowflakes out of my mouth in the snow scene with Amanda Peet, Alex Cunningham, and Stefan Calka (all dancers I grew up watching in my awkward teenage years). I still feel that same nervousness that I felt in the party child audition years ago before I go onstage as the Nutcracker and I don’t know if that will ever go away. And I have a very long way to go as a dancer but I can honestly say that “The Nutcracker” was what started it all for me as a performer. And even though party scene rehearsals become a bit of a chore at the end of a 6 hour work day, I am always pleasantly reminded of how special “The Nutcracker” was to me as a kid and still is to me as a dancer.

Alex Stewart