By Kathy Chaffin
kchaffin@salisburypost.com
When 9-year-old Kathryn LaJoie heard her father was going to play the viola for Sunday’s performances of “The Nutcracker,” she got so excited she started sleeping with her own wooden Nutcracker Prince.
That got old, her mother, Heather, said, but Kathryn’s excitement never wavered.
Kathryn ended up watching most of the 2:30 p.m. performance by the Piedmont Dance Theatre and Salisbury Symphony Orchestra without her mother as her baby sister, Elizabeth, started crying early on. “We had to make a hasty exit” Heather said.
She sat in a chair outside Catawba College’s Keppel Auditorium holding a sleeping Elizabeth and listening to the music. The baby continued to sleep even after the doors opened to the sounds of loud applause and cheering during the standing ovation.
Kathryn was one of the first to emerge from the auditorium. She quickly found her mother and turned out to be a reporter’s dream with her rave review.
“I thought it was a very good play,” she began, “and I would like to see it done again in Charlotte (where the LaJoies live) because it was so wonderful …
“I liked the actors. It was very good, very descriptive. I liked the show. It was very nice.”
Kathryn LaJoie wasn’t the only one raving about Sunday afternoon’s performance of “The Nutcracker.”
“That was wonderful,” one woman announced as she walked down the steps from the auditorium.
“We enjoyed it,” another said.
Elinor Swaim of Rowan County also described the performance as wonderful. “I’m so proud of all the people who were in it,” she said.
Eight-year-old Emy Benton of Charlotte was at the afternoon performance with her grandmother, Barbara Benton, her aunt, Amber Lawson, and her younger cousin, Abbey Lawson, all of Salisbury.
Emy’s favorite part of “The Nutcracker” was “the lady with all the children under her.” She said she and her grandmother had decided that Mother Ginger, played by Ian Prince, had to be on stilts.
As for Abbey, she liked the Snow Flakes the best.
Watching the performance brought back memories for Barbara Benton, who performed the dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy when she was young and can still remember the steps. “I love ‘The Nutcracker,’ ” she said. “It was a lot of fun to be here with my daughter and granddaughters.”
Before leaving, Barbara and her daughter preserved the memory by photographing Emy and Abbey with a life-sized Nutcracker statue at the side entrance to the auditorium.
At a reception following the performance, Daisy Bennett of Salisbury helped her two great-nieces secure autographs from the dancers for their programs. She also bought Nutcracker ornaments for them, her three nieces and a friend.
“We had a ball,” Bennett said, “we really did. It was wonderful.”
Grace Puckett, 14, of Harrisburg was one of three Spanish dancers in the afternoon performance. She was one of the Party Children and Snow Flakes in the 6:30 p.m. performance.
“It’s so much fun,” she said. “We’re just having a ball.”
This was Grace’s fifth year in a Nutcracker production.
Thirteen-year-old Laura Dearman of Statesville, who played Clara in the afternoon performance, praised the 1,000-plus people who attended. “It was a great audience, very enthusiastic” she said. “They really kept the dancers going.”
Her friend, Alley Helms, played Clara in the evening performance, when Laura played one of Mother Ginger’s Children.
Laura said she hopes to someday perform with the New York City Ballet.
Her father, Steve, said he enjoyed the Salisbury production because it was so professional. He said he was amazed at how the dancers and symphony had meshed together so seamlessly.
Linda Jones, executive director of the Salisbury-Rowan Symphony Society, said she was pleased that both performances had come close to selling out in a year when symphonies and dance companies all over the country are folding due to the poor economy. The Cincinnati Ballet, for example, cancelled its Nutcracker production this year.
Jones said she became worried when the economy started going downhill, but people kept calling wanting to buy tickets. It helped that the tickets were reasonably priced, she said, at $25 for adults and $12 for children on the main floor and $20 for adults and $10 for children in the balcony.
Some of the people who purchased tickets from larger cities such as Charlotte, Winston-Salem and Greensboro commented on the tickets being so reasonable, Jones said.
David Hagy, music director and conductor of the Salisbury Symphony Orchestra, said at the afternoon performance that he hoped “The Nutcracker” would become an annual event in Salisbury. This is the second consecutive year for the production, which had been held every five years or so.
Hagy also warned people in the afternoon performance that a bat had been spotted in Keppel Auditorium during dress rehearsal, adding, however, that it seemed to be enjoying the performance.
Jones said many who came to last year’s performances of “The Nutcracker” had requested that they do it again. “People were surprised at how good it was,” she said.
Though most of the tickets were sold, Jones said “The Nutcracker” production is very expensive and that the Piedmont Dance Theatre and Salisbury Symphony Orchestra will come close to breaking even.
“So this is a Christmas gift for the community,” she said.