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Not every play has to be provocative and challenging, and there's nothing wrong with something that is merely entertaining (I was the one and only person on the upper balcony who didn't think that Hairspray was fantastic - everyone else gave it a standing ovation. Perhaps the cast deserved a standing O, as they were from my perspective doing as much as could be done with the material they were given). I'd probably have a better attitude about it if I had known what to expect. What I don't understand is what the motivation(s) of critics is(are). Do they really believe that it's as good as they've claimed? Were they just anticipating that it would be popular and writing good reviews so that they'd agree with their readers?

I can post here on Hairspray since it has dancing in it, right? I must live in a different world than theatre critics do. I went to see it on Sunday since it was advertised as having won 8 Tony Awards. Well, I almost fell asleep during the first act. The second act was moderately entertaining, but still why all the fuss? I seriously considered leaving at the intermission because the plot was so unimaginative that I knew what was going to happen without having to watch. If this was one of the best plays ever, I'd hate to see one of the worst.

Ballet is life for dancers, choreographers, ballet masters/mistresses, directors, teachers and many more who make their livelihood through the artform. A ballet company is not a passing fancy to those of us who have invested our lives in it. OK, I relented and tried to donate some money to the CB. When PayPal still listed the donation as unclaimed 15 days later, I cancelled it. For tax purposes, I wanted to donate that money to someone before the end of 2006, and I didn't have time to try to get things straightened out.

Ditto! Especially the Mina/Renfield dance. I haven't seen anything else quite like it, especially when Andrew Thompson danced the role of Renfield. Overall, in my limited dance-watching experience, Dracula differs from the other dance programs that I've seen in that it's story-oriented and ensemble-oriented rather than dance-oriented and solo-oriented. Since I'm not knowledgeable enough about the techniques of dancing, this sort of thing is enjoyable for me, but I can see that a serious dance fan might miss the seeing the challenging solos.

I'd have to say that for me it's the music and the story. And the atmosphere. Dracula is very much theatre (I think that Michael Pink calls it "dance theatre" rather than ballet). The music and lighting effects really capture me emotionally (I really like the music, and even bought a CD). It has much more plot and more sophisticated characters than most ballets. But I can see why sophisticated ballet fans might not be big fans of Dracula. The choreography isn't terribly challenging. There aren't any opportunities for virtuoso solos for the women. Even Dracula is constrained by the weight of the costume (20 lbs.!). But Dracula isn't "dumbed down" to specifically appeal to unsophisticated audiences, like Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake is. It's just a fun thing that I can lose myself in.

In a fit of penitance, I read America's Competitive Secret: Women Managers, a book about how men work to maintain the "glass ceiling". (Actually, I had bought it online not knowing what it was about and thinking that it might be useful for the 25-ish woman who was promoted to manage one of the projects that I work on.)

Now for my guilty secret. I went back to see Dracula again on Sunday. It's getting difficult to keep a Count of how many times I've seen it, but I think that makes 9 (is there a little Renfield in me?). Which means that I've seen 9 different variations of the "Tea Dance" scene. How do they manage to re-arrange it for every performance? I managed to make it to my seat just as it started, despite the best efforts of the box office. It drives me batty how slow they are. Ten minutes elapsed between the time the person in front of me stepped up to the window and the time I actually possessed a ticket. Maybe it was because it was a matinee and the ticket sellers were weakened by the sunlight. The cast was a little reVamped this time (which is why I wanted to see it again), with Igor Vassine as Dracula, Maria Mosina shifting over to Lucy, Sharon Wehner stepping in as Mina Harker, and Koichi Kubo recovering enough of his sanity to step up from Renfield to Jonathan Harker. All 4 have been in the CB for at least a decade, and Wehner and Kubo have been paired together for most of that time. Their familiarity with each other was evident. I like Mosina better as Lucy than as Mina. Her dance in the "Crypt" scene was stunning (if she had danced like that as Giselle, it would have been Giselle's mother rather than Giselle who had the heart attack ). Wehner is (IMHO) the definitive Mina. Kubo did a better job of acting like someone who had been drugged in the "Castle" scene than have some of the other Harkers. All-in-all, this is my favorite cast (it's the second time I've seen this particular foursome), but I miss Andrew Thompson as Renfield. I was a bit curious about something that I observed during the curtain calls, though maybe it was purely coincidental. Maria Mosina always stayed a step behind Sharon Wehner. Was it intentional, or did it just happen that way? Or maybe they always do it that way and I just never noticed. At one point Mosina even extended her arm towards Wehner in what seemed to be the same kind of gesture that the leading man typically makes when the lead ballerina steps forward to take her bow. Maybe she just acknowledging the audience and it was just by coincidence that her arm happened to point in the direction of Wehner. But it caught my attention. The curtain calls were also a little muddled when some official came on stage and gave some sort of gift to the orchestra conductor. I saw in Wednesday's The Denver Post that the conductor is retiring from the CB, so that must have been the motivation, but they could have at least stuck some sort of announcement in the program so that the audience would know what was going on.

I hate to be a curmudgeon, but... In Denver, it's just been in the last couple years that people have started bringing babies and pre-school children to the ballet and symphony. The results have usually been predictable. On Sunday at Dracula, a pre-schooler on the other side of the aisle talked the entire second act. I was going to say something to the parents during the intermission, but the usher was joking with them so I figured that I wouldn't get any support.

The program for Dracula contained a couple of updates about the CB's schedule (in Gil Bogg's "letter"): 1) There will be a second, short work paired with Where the Wild Things Are titled Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1. 2) The third work in the Dance Creations program will be a piece titled Celts, choreographed by Lila York.

I did go back. Same cast, different result. This time I could really sink my teeth into it. I found Chandra Kuykendall to be quite effective. Perhaps the first time I was comparing her to my memory of previous performances rather than judging her on what she did. And she is tall (I believe the tallest woman in the CB), which isn't always the best for portraying someone who is supposed to be young. The fact that I had a seat that actually faced the stage didn't hurt, either (the Ellie Caukins Opera House has seats that face the wall on the other side of the theatre!!!). Maria Mosina was in fine form, but again John Henry Reid stole the show. The music had a little more bite where I sat this time as well (one would have hoped that the acoustics in an opera house would be undead). I again saw Gil Boggs. I thought about saying "It's a 10", but a 10 is something like a sextuple bogey, which usually results in someone throwing their golf clubs into the lake.

This was my 7th time, and maybe it's starting to get a little stale for me. Of course, I only got 3 hours sleep Wednesday night, so maybe it was just me. But I haven't ruled out going to see it one more time. I thought that John Henry Reid did a great job. He seems to be on his way up at the CB, and his performance would seem to justify that. He is smaller than the other men who have played the infamous count, so he played Dracula more as a kind of sly, slinky villain rather than as the physically intimidating creature that, say, Igor Vassine did. I know it's kind of bad manners to be critical, but I wasn't impressed by Chandra Kuykendall. I thought she seemed stiff and mechanical, and didn't do a very good job of acting like a vulnerable young woman. But I overheard a woman (who apparently is a dance instructor) say (approximately) "Chandra has a fantastic turn-out and her extension is wonderful. She's my favorite." So I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Chauncey Parsons is my favorite Jonathan Harken. I thought that Maria Mosina was rather subdued last night. In the past I've felt that the show was as much about Mena Harken as about Dracula, but last night Dracula dominated. GG, I noticed that the program didn't mention what Gregory Gonzalez (he was brought back to play von Helsing) is doing now. He left the CB pretty quietly a few years ago, and I've never heard where he went? Do you know what he's doing? Haven't they always had a live orchestra for Dracula?

What keeps me from loving Giselle as much as the Tchaikovsky ballets, for example, is its syrupy score. So I'm with you on the not-a-favorite status. There are 2 things that I don't like about it: 1) Too little dancing by the men; 2) It's a little long given the smallness of the plot, with too much of the dancing not seeming to do a lot to advance the story. For example, the "harvest pas de deux" seems like it was thrown in so that the no. 2 pair in the company (or these days, perhaps a couple of future principles) would have a showcase.

I'm not really qualfied to review Giselle. I've never had any dance training and Giselle is basically an exhibition for the prima ballerina. OK, a few comments: I actually enjoyed the performance a lot more than I anticipated, though it probably will never be one of my favorites (it's more for sophisticated ballet-goers). And it is always great to watch Maria Mosina (as Giselle) dance. She is so flexible, not just physically but in her ability to project such a wide variety of moods while seeming totally natural. I don't know how she compares with the principal dancers at the top companies, but I'm guessing that someone at my level (barely literate, dance-wise) wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Igor Vassine (Albrecht) has really matured the past few years. He uses far more finesse now rather than settling for showing off his tremendous athletic ability. Perhaps being paired so often with Mosina has helped him. Gil Boggs passed in front of me when I was walking to the lobby during intermission. I resisted the urge to yell "fore!".

I'm not really qualfied to review Giselle. I've never had any dance training and Giselle is basically an exhibition for the prima ballerina.

Does anyone remember how long the show lasted? I'm stuck going tonight and I need to get up WAY tool early tomorrow.

As a practical matter, the future of the Colorado Ballet is hardly dependent on my small donation.

vrsfanatic, your last 2 posts seem to imply that you have knowledge that the dancers didn't like one or more of the recently departed artistic staff members (Labsan, Pakri, Thompson). If there are good reasons for all the changes that have been made, there are tactful ways of communicating them. After all, one of the co-chairs of the Board of Trustees owns a public relations company. I have absolutely no interest in giving money to an organization that keeps everyone in the dark about what's going on. When things are kept secret, I assume the worst.

I can't buy into the claim that firing the staff is routine when a new director takes over. When Jeffrey Kahane took over as the music director of the Colorado Symphony, he didn't run off the remaining artistic staff members. Yet the CSO has clearly become his orchestra, and his vision is dominant. The Colorado Ballet has lost my respect. They will have to re-earn my loyalty and patronage.

Marc Shulgold's column contained the statement "Meelis Pakri left for England". I assume that doesn't mean that Pakri is on vacation.

And Boggs hired his wife? While his wife is undoubtably highly qualified, firing people and hiring your spouse as one of the replacements hardly creates a good impression.

Alan Vincent, who played the lead in the performance I saw, was quoted in the L.A. Times as saying "I get bored watching ballet" (see the Mar. 8 thread in the Links forum).

You're far from the only one on this site. There've been a couple of threads about MBSL, most noticeably one in the "Ballets" forum. I'd say that there is a pretty even split amongst those who have expressed an opinion.

The 1996 DVD of Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake was in fact titled Tchiakovsky's Swan Lake!!! As opposed to all the other versions of Swan Lake that were danced to Tchiakovsky's score? I've never completely dropped the idea that MBSL is a parody, and this might be one more piece of evidence. I found the statement "And what a choreographer he is, combining modern dance and ballet to the point where you don't know where one ends and the other begins." to be even more annoying.

In Denver, there is a joke that CSO stands for "Customary Standing Ovation" rather than "Colorado Symphony Orchestra". SOs are the rule rather than the exception at the symphony but are very rare (IMHO, too rare) at the Colorado Ballet for some reason. I think some of it is competitive. People feel that if other performers are getting standing ovations then their favorite performer deserves one as well.

The Colorado Ballet's 2006-07 season, according to their electronic newsletter: Giselle - Sep. 29 to Oct. 15 Dracula - Oct 19 to Oct. 22 The Nutcracker - Nov. 25 to Dec. 24 Where the Wild Things Are - Feb. 23 to Mar. 10 Dance Creations (new works by Jessica Lang and Darrel Moultrie) - Mar. 17 to Mar. 25