Hansel & Gretel
Shanachie Ballet Company
November 8th - November 27th
Cast
Hansel - Rhodes Vasilakis
Gretel - Briana Parker
Witch - Josette Wheeler
Mother - Sofia Aldrich Father - James Willis
Sandman - Dante Alvarez
Dew Drop Fairy - Kaede Kamaya
Rag Dolls - Christian & Merethyl Benoit
School Children - Members of Shanachie STARS
Last edited by Anthony De Luca on Sun Nov 07, 2021 2:05 pm, edited 5 times in total.
There was a town where children had mysteriously been disappearing, one by one, ever since the arrival of a new teacher at the local school. She seemed nice enough and the children certainly enjoyed her stories, but they especially liked the seemingly endless supply of sweets she gave them.
There are now only two children left in the town, Hansel and Gretel. They are locked in their house every day for their own safety. However, they miss their school friends terribly and are bored with each other’s company so, they hatch a plan to go and find their friends. After all, the adults don't seem to be doing much!
But, Hansel and Gretel’s parents are working day and night to keep food on the table. And all there ever seems to be left to eat is bread. Hansel and Gretel are constantly hungry.
Once ready for bed, Hansel and Gretel wait for their parents to fall asleep on the sofa, just like they do every night. But this night is different. Hansel and Gretel creep out of the house to find their friends, and their adventure begins.
They walk along the main street seeing people with no place to call their home, a gang of men calling themselves 'The Ravens' and a very glamorous lady sweeps past them. She looks familiar and it isn't until she hands them both lollipops that Gretel recognises her as the schoolteacher they used to like. So, they follow her all the way to the edge of town.
They lose their way and find they're alone in a forest. Hansel is frightened, but Gretel is fearless and tells him to mark their pathway by dropping breadcrumbs on the ground so they can find their way back home. Hansel is already extremely hungry, but does as he’s told. Unknown to them both, as fast as they drop them, they are being picked up by birds, ravens in fact, that are following them. Once Gretel discovers this she tries to scare them off, but they’re not frightened. In fact, they lead Hansel and Gretel deeper and deeper into the forest.
The moon begins to shine and cradled in it is a beguiling and beautiful woman. This mysterious, yet familiar, woman bewitches Hansel and Gretel and conjures up a Sandman who sprinkles magic sand in their eyes that sends them into a deep sleep.
They dream their parents have found them. And because they are so hungry they dream of a huge banquet with every roast dinner they could ever imagine. But as they sleep, the lady from the moon hovers above sieving flour onto them as though she was going to cook them...
Act II
Hansel and Gretel are sleeping in the forest, their Mother, Father and neighbours are frantically searching for them. The ravens have gathered around Hansel and Gretel and the mysterious lady from the moon conjures up a Dew Drop Fairy to wake them up.
Gretel wakes first and notices lollipops and sweets in the trees. Then, she sees a house made from gingerbread, icing and candy canes. She wakes Hansel and they venture inside, followed closely by the lady from the moon.
Once inside Hansel and Gretel see more sweets, cakes and candy than they could ever imagine and eat as much as they can before they are interrupted by a figure walking past the window. They hide as they watch the door creak open. In walks the mysterious lady but as she takes off her cloak she begins to turn into something else. A witch.
She sees Hansel and Gretel and although they’re afraid she convinces them to come out from their hiding place. She shows them around her house; Gretel wants to leave, however the Witch convinces them to stay.
Hansel discovers a doll’s house and the witch encourages him to look inside. He does but finds he is imprisoned in a cage and Gretel realises there’s no way out of the house now. The witch explains that she’ll fatten Hansel up over the next few days and when his finger feels plump enough she’ll eat him. She sets Gretel to work and shows her how to stoke the fire in which she plans to cook Hansel.
Gretel tries to steal the key to the cage from the witch. She succeeds and once she frees Hansel they both push the witch in the oven!
All is still, until they begin to see children appearing all around them, their friends from school! By destroying the witch they have broken her spell and more than that, their parents have found the gingerbread house. Everybody is re-united and they all live happily ever after.
((Feel free to post for your characters below!))
Dante strode down the various halls where the dancers had their dressing rooms and had already addressed (and gifted) the members of the Shanachie STARS with their present during a recent rehearsal. The remainder of the cast received their gifts tonight on the final night of the performance for Hansel and Gretel. The gift? A small glass jar of sand taken from the exclusive and beautiful Sandy Bay beach in Gibraltar during a recent trip with Cesare.
Josette had given out hand folded origami swans. Why shouldn’t Dante, as the Sandman, hand out a small collection of sand to put to sleep any fears or anxiety which might be present? “De nada.” He told each performer they were welcome whether they said thank you or gave him blank looks of confusion. Sandy Bay was a unique location as the beach which backed up onto the Rock of Gibraltar and the Great Gibraltar Sand Dune had nearly been completely eroded away until tons of sand had been imported from the Sahara Desert. How fitting that the two continents finally met one another at such a beautiful location…and now each dancer possessed a bit of that connection.
“Estrellita.” Dante greeted Josette when she answered the door of her dressing room. “A gift to put to sleep any anxiety about our last performance of the run.” He placed the small gift directly into her hand. Dante curled her fingers over the jar to ensure she did not drop such a wonderful gift. The headphones he’d been wearing had been pulled off of only one ear and Metallica’s Enter Sandman could be heard playing on a loop…the heavy drums and hard riffs of the iconic song easily recognizable given the current volume. “You will make the most perfect, witch, Little Star…but…” The conjunction spiced with a sudden, crisp snap of the fingers before he pointed at her, “Do not assume that because the Witch summons the Sandman that I am here to do your bidding. No.” A pause to ensure the words were settling in and the ballerina understood. “Dante Lorenzo Domínguez-Álvarez is conjured up by no one.”
Josette arched a brow at Dante’s words. She’d been about to thank him for the gift before he snapped his fingers in her face. “Bueno. Perhaps not, but it’s entirely possible I can summon up a way to make you disappear.” The petite ballerina blew him a kiss like blowing away so many grains of sand from her fingers before she unceremoniously slammed the door in the arrogant eagle’s face.
There could be more than a few giggles of laughter by the heard by various corps members on the other side of the door.
Dante could only blink in shock and surprise as the ordinarily sweet Josette slammed her door in his face this time. THE NERVE! The Outrage! His feathers might have been temporarily ruffled, but The Black Eagle soon smoothed them back into place, along with is pride, with a roll of his shoulders.
“Bueno. Bueno. She is already in character. You are welcome, Estrellita. Dante is always pleased to help his fellow performers.” Spoken through the door before he pulled his headphones back into proper place and moved to prepare himself for the performance. Still, he crossed himself and retreated to find his grandmother’s rosary in his dressing room…just to be sure. She wore the part of the wicked bruja beauty a little too well.
When it came time to take the stage, the Black Eagle perfectly summoned the Sandman’s otherworldly qualities. Once Josette’s Witch had conjured him with a curl of slender fingers and her own unique brand of moonlit magic as if she commanded the stars themselves, Dante leapt onto the stage. Of course, Dante was already a star in his own mind.
The Black Eagle’s ethereal movements of dance and body captured the dark intent of the Witch, embodied the silvery softness of the moonlight which shone down through the thick branches and brambles of the deep forest. He might have put Rhodes’ Hansel and Briana’s Gretel (both of which performed superbly throughout the night) to sleep yet the audience would, as always, remain spellbound and attentive.
This was a smaller part than Dante was perhaps used to performing, yet he knew in his own mind that the story hinged upon his ability to transition Hansel and Gretel into their deep sleep so they might wake in the witch’s clutches.
His job done, El Águila Negra, waited in the wings to watch the remainder of the performances. Josette absolutely captivated as the witch and proved that the Little Star could bring a hint of menace to her otherwise sweet disposition. How he wished he’d seen her dance Odile in Swan Lake.
And Dante celebrated with the audience as Hansel and Gretel outsmarted the witch’s wicked plot with Rhodes and Briana having such great chemistry and determination and marveled at Jaime’s love and compassion in his role as Hansel and Gretel’s hardworking, worried, and ultimately relieved Father. Kaede proved the perfect foil and opposite to Dante’s Sandman as the Dew Drop Fairy canceled his magic and woke the brother and sister as intended, while Christian and Merethyl proved to be perfect Rag Dolls. His applause joined that of the audience as the Happily Ever After ending settled upon the theater and El Tres himself couldn’t remain aloof or immune from the sensation.
((Much thanks to Josette’s writer for delivering a dose of humility to the haughty Eagle!))
"Once upon a time there lived a girl. She slept in a lovely little cottage made of gingerbread and candy. She was always asleep. One morning she woke up, and the candy had mold on it. Her father blew her a kiss and the house fell down. She realized she was lost. She found herself walking down a crowded street, but the people were made of paper, like paper dolls. She blew everyone a kiss goodbye, and watched as they blew away."
-Winne Holzman
It was a far cry from The Land of Sweets in the Nutcracker. This sugar-spun Grimm world lured those the wicked witch summoned like a sticky web of fairy floss. Dew drops dripped from the silver webbing of her skirt and the bodice may have been such a pretty pink, but the icicles that extended from the small flare of her hips to her clavicles were like so many tiny knives.
Moonlight glittered off the ballerina’s tiara of moonstones imbued with the power to darken one’s path, rather than illuminate it. For the branches in this dark forest bowed to her and cast shadows over breadcrumbs left behind so her pretty ravens could feast upon them within their sinister shade.
The Sandman she summons spins like a whirling cyclone of a sandstorm, though his dream is merely a mirage that is there and gone till the lovely Dew Drop Fairy clears their vision to help them awaken.
She’s not the first witch to perish in fire and she won’t be the last. The ravens whisk her moonlit ashes away in a whirlwind of dark wings—the greedy things. They always did love shiny things.
