Ballet Lubbock will present its spring production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” this weekend at the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center. Nicholas Dragga, Executive Director of Ballet Lubbock, and Yvonne Racz Key, Artistic Director, visit with the Front Row to share more about the event.
How did you decide on “A Midsummer Night’s Dream?”
Racz Key: We actually did it in 2007, and we actually performed it at LHUCA in their firehouse theatre. So we had talked about, this is the year that we do a story ballet and we loved doing that ballet, and we thought if we do it here then we have a bigger stage, a bigger venue, we can do more. And it’s a great ballet to incorporate the younger students as well and the music is beautiful and the story is beautiful. I loved doing it back then and time has passed and we thought, well it’s time to do it again.
You said, “It’s time to do a story ballet,” I gather you have a plan.
We trade off every spring, so one spring we do a story ballet, one spring we do more of a mixed rep. So, one year we did a percussion point with Texas Tech and their ensemble and the next year we did Snow White. Last year we did “Click,” which was more a collection of mixed repertoire with live music, and this year is our story ballet.
Nick, what goes in to formulating a production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream?”
Dragga: Really we’ve got just a great team, really that’s it…I think the fortunate thing is that we do have a plan, that it’s been in the works for a couple of years, so we can budget and plan and figure out what kind of costumes or set pieces we can re-purpose, or what do we need to purchase. And let’s start on it maybe more than two weeks before the show. It’s really simple when I talk about it.
It’s the actual Shakespeare play?
Racz Key: Yes, the ballet has been done several times, from different professional ballet companies, and everybody has kind of their own version. There’s a version that’s kind of scaled down that maybe centers on the dream…and then there’s the version where it’s the entire story. Everybody has a different version. The version that I’m doing is actually very similar to one that I performed when I was at the University of Utah and I loved it so much, so I wanted to re-do it here. And I made little tweaks and changes and things according to the students we have. But it pretty much follows the story.
Listen to the full interview at the top of the article.
