"Living Nativity"

By now you may have been wondering just why I was in New York City with my brother. Well, he has an old college friend, Barbara VanZandt, who is the Wardrobe Supervisor at Radio City Music Hall. She called him and asked if he was interested in 2 free tickets for a rehearsal show. Oh, but of course!
The last time we had seen show was in 1993. It was the first time for my boys who were 6 and 12 at the time. Now the weird thing about this is that the 2 times I went as a child, I was 6 for one show and 12 for the other! Now how do I remember this? Well, back at that time they also showed a movie and the two movies we saw were Auntie Mame (1958) and Father Goose (1964). We hadn't planned it that way, we just figured it out after we had come home and looked up the years that the two movies had come out. I think that's kinda cool.
Oh, also before we saw the show we went on the Radio City Stage Door Tour. Since there were 6 of us they made us a group by ourselves which was nice. If you go to the show you really should try to do the tour. The boys thought it was neat. We saw the costume shop, one of the two art deco apartments that are used for receptions, a private enclosed booth that is used by celebrities to see the show, watched a movie about the Hall being built and the opening night, and there is even a Rockett in costume in the rehearsal hall that we took our picture with.

The show starts with The Mighty Wurlitzer Organ, which we didn't get to see this time as there was a musicans strike, which I think was settled the next day. That we did miss! It is followed by an Overture and then there are 10 scenes to the show. I've included a picture of the Parade of the Wooden Soldiers, the part where they all fall. It's a family favorite. Back in 1993 when we took my dad he had tears in his eyes at this scene which of course got my brother and I all choked up too.
The Living Nativity comes at the end and is just wonderful with live animals and beautiful narration.

Radio City Music Hall Website:
http://www.radiocity.com/eventcalendar/home

Copyright © 2005 Deborah Sharp Loeb

(In Paul's first teaching job he worked with a girl who was a Rockett. She taught dance.)
Note: I don't know if picture taking would be allowed during a regular show, as I said this was a rehearsal show.