At the top of a number inside Nevada Ballet Theatre’s rehearsal space, the dancers are lined up in orderly fashion, along lines taped to the studio floor. As the music picks up, chaos swirls around the woman playing the role of Dorothy Gale.
That action leads to one of the most memorable lines in cinematic history, the Wicked Witch’s “I’m melting, melting!” Conveyed tacitly in dance, the performance stays true to the classic story from the 1939 film, while telling it through an entirely new medium.
To close out its 50th anniversary season, Nevada Ballet Theatre is putting on one of its largest-scale productions to date, The Wizard of Oz, with choreography by Septime Webre and music by Matthew Pierce.
Nevada Ballet Theater rehearsing ‘The Wizard of Oz’
During a Thursday rehearsal, they’re practicing with an imported set and props including a moving Yellow Brick Road and 20 puppets—“more than any I’ve ever seen in any production,” artistic director Roy Kaiser says.
Kaiser’s remark comes the day before 75 dancers, who play more than 100 roles, put together the entire run of show for the first time. “So far, it’s been rehearsed in just pieces,” he says, amid attending to other demands.
The studio’s vestibule serves as partial storage for the set pieces and the puppets, which the dancers manipulate during the show. And it’s no easy task to fold a 5-foot-tall flying monkey into the routine. (“Fly, my pretties, fly!”)
Stager Philippe Larouche has been traveling with the show and assisting NBT to make sure it all goes off without a hitch. The ballet has been performed by only three other companies in the U.S. and in Winnipeg, Ontario.
“I’ve been doing this show for a while now, so I’m able to anticipate many of the challenges that come with elements like props, set pieces, flying and costumes,” Larouche says. “The sheer volume of material places significant demands on the artists, and if dancers get injured or ill, reorganizing the show is usually a complex puzzle.”
Additionally, vibrant costumes transport viewers to the different worlds of Oz, from Emerald City to the forest full of talking trees to the Wicked Witch’s castle. Dorothy’s hallmark blue gingham dress gets an update, while the Wicked Witch sports a studded leather trench coat that would put any biker to shame. And 38 child dancers play various, fantastic characters, including poppy seeds and grasshoppers.
Back in the studio, the Wicked Witch of the West’s minions torment and pick apart Dorothy’s loyal travel companions. Her beloved dog Toto, played by a dancer-operated, mechanical puppet, “runs” around frantically. Eventually, the chaos clears, and Dorothy is presented with the witch’s coveted broom.
Getting such a “huge” show together has been a challenge, Kaiser concedes. “It’s very complicated. … Everything must be in place,” he says, adding that the scale of the production is “perfect” to close out the theater’s semi-centennial season.
NEVADA BALLET THEATRE: THE WIZARD OF OZ May 13-21, times vary, $31-$155. Reynolds Hall, thesmithcenter.com.
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