Marionette Theater in Central Park

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     If you enter Central Park from West 81 street  you'll see one of the best-kept secrets of New York for kids:  Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre. 
The Swedish Cottage is home to one of the last public marionette companies in the United States. Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre was founded in 1939 and today the company continues to fashion its own scripts, make its own puppets, and produce its own shows.

     The house was originally  constructed as a model schoolhouse and was  transported to Philadelphia to be shown as Sweden’s entry in the 1876 Centennial Exposition. 

    Central Park co-designer Frederick Law Olmsted liked  the  rustic building and at his urging the cottage was disassembled and transported to Central Park. The cottage was used as  the nature study center for children and an entomological lab before it became headquarters for the Parks Department’s Traveling Marionette Theater. 

The theatre holds up to 100 people and has a party room. You have to arrive half an hour before the show to be able to pick of the  seats.

The theater is a 5-minute walk from 79th and West Drive Central Park entrance. There are signs guiding you there. It is next to the Shakespeare Garden

"Neverland: Peter Returns"  runs several times a week through September 2018.

Based on J.M. Barrie’s iconic Peter Pan tales, Neverland: Peter Returns is the Swedish Cottage’s spin on the beloved children’s classic. Leaving their parents behind, the Darling children follow Peter Pan back home to Neverland for the adventure of a lifetime. When the cunning Captain Hook turns Peter’s pals Tiger Lily and Tinker Bell against him, the children team up with the Never Boys to save the day, learning the value of forgiveness and friendship (….)

The price is $8 for children and $12 for adults
You can reserve tickets  by phone:(212)988-9093. Address : 830 5th Ave  New York, NY 10065 Buy Tickets online Theatre Web Site

 This is also  a place  where children celebrate their 3/4/5 year old birthdays. $800 fee (for three hours)  includes private showing of current production, usage of party room for up to 75 people , equipped with child-size furniture, small microwave, small refrigerator, one large table and five small  tables.  An additional hour can be added onto the  party for the cost of $200. 

Balanchine's The Nutcracker: Russia+America

Choreographer George Balanchine's production of Tschaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker has become the most famous stage production of the ballet performed in the U.S.    The New York City Ballet's annual production of The Nutcracker is at the heart of New York City's year-end holiday season.  

According to German folklore, nutcrackers were given as keepsakes to bring good luck to your family and protect your home. The legend says that a nutcracker represents power and strength and serves like a trusty watch dog guarding your family from evil spirits and danger. 

   In 1816, German Romantic author of fantastic tales, E T A Hoffman    published  "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" , a scary fairy-tale intended only for adults.   Hoffmann was actually named Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann, but he changed the Wilhelm to Amadeus out of admiration for Mozart.  He drew, he painted and    wrote stories, spooky tales that trespassed the border between fantasy and reality. 
In 1944  the French writer Alexandre Dumas père (he of The Three Musketeers) altered that original version.  He gave it the title "Histoire d'un casse-noisette"  and his popularity ensured its success there. His version was not a strict translation but an adaptation, a retelling in his own words.    Dumas made the story   lighter and less scary.

Nutcracker
6 Avenue
Manhattan

It was Dumas' version that was eventually to provide the script for the ballet.  After the success of "The Sleeping Beauty"  in 1890, Ivan Vsevolozhsky, the director of the Imperial Theatres, commissioned the famous Russian compose Peter Tchaikovsky to compose a double-bill program featuring both an opera and a ballet. The opera would be "Iolanta". For the ballet, Tchaikovsky   joined  forces with  the French ballet dancer, teacher and choreographer Marius Petipa,  with whom he had collaborated on The Sleeping Beauty.   Petipa' s choice was   "The Tale of the Nutcracker"  by Dumas.  Petipa gave Tchaikovsky extremely detailed instructions for the composition of each number. Tchaikovsky wrote to his friend: I am daily becoming more and more attuned to my task.”     The completion of the work was interrupted for a short time when Tchaikovsky visited the United States for twenty-five days to conduct concerts for the opening of Carnegie Hall.

San Francisco Ballet

The first complete performance outside Russia took place in England in 1934  staged by Nicholas Sergeyev after Petipa's original choreography. The ballet's first complete United States performance was seventy years ago, on 24 December 1944, by the San Francisco Ballet.  After the enormous success of this production, San Francisco Ballet has presented Nutcracker every Christmas Eve and throughout the winter season.

Balanchine

George Balanchine, who grew up in Russia, danced the role of the Prince in The Nutcracker in 1919 when he was 15 years old.    Balanchine   studied  dance at the Russian Imperial Ballet School and music at the conservatory in St. Petersburg. He danced and choreographed in Europe before Lincoln Kirstein invited him to move to America.     Kirstein   grew up in a wealthy Jewish Bostonian family and attended the private Berkshire School, graduating in 1926.  His interest in Balanchine and ballet started when he saw Balanchine's Apollo performed by the Ballets Russes.  Kirstein became determined to bring Balanchine to America.  In 1934, Balanchine and Kirstein founded the School of American Ballet in New York City.

New York City Ballet at Lincoln Center

Balanchine decided to choreograph his own version of The Nutcracker for his company. The New York City Ballet gave its first annual performance of George Balanchine's staging of The Nutcracker in February 1954.
Barbara Karinska   (Varvara Andreevna Jmoudsky ) designed the costumes.   She was trained in embroidery in Russia and worked in Paris and London before moving to New York in 1939.   The only costumes still in use from the original 1954 production   are the Grandmother’s cape and the embroidered appliqués on the women’s costumes in the Tea dance.
Rouben Ter-Arutunian   was the scenic designer.  Ter-Arutunian was Armenian and studied and worked in Berlin, Vienna, and Paris. He moved to the United States in 1951.

New York City Ballet usually presents 47 performances of the ballet annually. All 90 dancers, 62 musicians, 32 stagehands and two casts of 50 young students each from the School of American Ballet join forces to make each performance as magical as possible.

George Balanchine's The Nutcracker  is one of the most complex theatrical, staged ballets in the Company's active repertory. The popularity of the ballet is immense and it provides an unforgettable spark to everyone's holiday season.
Time magazine wrote in February  1954 :"The orchestra launched into the tuneful old Tchaikovsky score, the curtain rose on a well-stuffed parlor, and for the next two hours Manhattan ballet fans lost themselves in George Balanchine's newest ballet, a full-length re-creation of The Nutcracker. It was one of the most cheerful evenings of make-believe the ballet had seen in years:"
Balanchine served as Ballet Master of New York City Ballet from its inception until his death, in 1983.

Over time, more major (and minor) regional ballet companies started performing the work during the Christmas season,  with many other great choreographers putting their stamp on the work: Rudolf Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Alexei Ratmansky and Matthew Bourne all have their own esteemed versions. About half of all worldwide productions this year of "The Nutcracker" will be in the United States .   You still have  time to see the ballet this  season- the last performance is on the 3 of January.

Ballet and Masons: New York City Center

New York City   Center,   a wonderful concert venue  in the heart of Manhattan on West 55 between 6 and 7 Avenue,    was built in  1923 as a meeting hall for the members of  the Ancient Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine,  commonly known as Shriners. 
According to  Shriners web site,  "Shriners International is a fraternity based on fun, fellowship and the Masonic principles of brotherly love, relief and truth with nearly 200 temples (chapters) in seven countries and thousands of clubs around the world. "
 I saw shriners for the first time in 2006 on their parade when I was on vacation in Virginia beach. I was surprised to see  hundreds of men dressed in the red funny hats on a tiny cars.  It was the first time in my life when I met Masons.

In 1870, several thousand of the 900,000 residents of Manhattan were Masons.  Many of these Masons used  to  lunch at a special table  at the  restaurant at  Sixth Avenue.  Two of the table regulars,  a prominent surgeon   Walter   Fleming   and  a well known actor  William   Florence  thought that  the world’s oldest fraternity – Masonry was   too focused on ritual. These guys wanted a fraternity that stressed fun and fellowship.

Florence came up with the idea for a Near Eastern-themed party after attending a party thrown by an Arabian diplomat in France.  Fleming added the structure, sketching  the   name,   rituals and rules.  Together, Fleming and Florence designed the fraternity’s emblem   and determined that the red fez with the black tassel would be the group’s official headgear.

The fez derived its name from the place where it was first manufactured , the   city of Fe in  Morocco.  
In  1922, the New York Shriners purchased a lot  on West 55th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues.  Harry P. Knowles, a Mason and a Shriner, designed the Moorish-style buildings, but he died early and  the architectural firm of Clinton & Russell realized Knowles' designs.
 The 2,750-seat auditorium had a level main floor and two steeply-sloped balconies. In the basement there was one of the largest ballrooms in New York City. At the north side of the lot and opening onto 56th Street was a   12-story building that contained offices and three lodge rooms for use by the 12,000 members of the temple.

The Mosque of Mecca Temple opened on December 29, 1924.  For the next several years, Mecca Temple was rented for a variety of dramatic and musical performances, lectures and meetings.
In 1937 the temple defaulted on its mortgage payments and in 1942 the city claimed the building for $622,000 in back taxes.  Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia saved the building  and   developed the idea for the City Center for Music and Drama, a New York home for the best of theater, music, and dance.
Today there are approximately 350,000 Shrine Masons ( only men!) belonging to 191 chapters in the U.S., Mexico, Canada and the Republic of Panama.  In order to become a Shriner, a man must first be a Master Mason -all Shriners are Masons, but not all Masons are Shriners.   Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt   and Harry S. Truman , actor Clark Gable and the second men on the moon Edwin Aldrin,  the Founder of the FBI John Edgar Hoover and the last king of Hawaii were shriners.
The City Center today  is  Manhattan’s premier  arts center.  Leonard Bernstein conducted the New York City Symphony in   after-work concerts in New York City Center .   The New York City Ballet and New York City Opera were both born at this theater.   In 1987  Mr. Baryshnikov and Mr. Nureyev appeared on the same program as  Maya Plicetskaya  in this theater. The renowned choreographer  Boris  Eifman  marked the  marked  the 35th anniversary  of his Ballet of St. Petersburg with the U.S. premiere of  " Rodin" in 2012 in New York City Center.
 In 2011, City Center was reopened  after a  started a $75 million renovation. The mosaic walls, arabesque ceilings and the original box-office lobby were restored.
In May 2015   New York City Center presents the American premiere of the new ballet  "Tender is the night"  from Boris Eifman  based on the adaptation of novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald.   Tickets are on sale now- so you have a chance to see an beautiful  ballet in a beautiful  theater!