The Newberry Library currently has on display Pictures from an Exposition: Visualizing the 1893 World’s Fair, which is why it hosted an event about The Joffrey Ballet’s reimagined Nutcracker, which opened in 2016 and which uses the exposition as its background.

The Newberry also houses Ruth Page’s papers, which include choreography notes from that company’s Arie Crown production of The Nutcracker, which opened in 1965. Page’s notes include pictures, which Newberry curator Alison Hinderliter showed, of nails, staples, pins, and other such items that had to be cleaned from the stage each night after falling with the snow from the rafters.

Joffrey Artistic Director Ashley Wheater said his company has the same problem and uses a sieve when cleaning the snow off the stage to filter out such junk.

Speaking of snow, Wheater added that choreographer Christopher Wheeldon had assured him, in noting concerns about the acceptance of changes made to the classic, that the tree still will grow and the snow still will fall.

And, all this happens as a result of over 2000 production cues in the show, which is a lot of opportunities for something to go wrong, which could drive a person to drink. But if it did, not to worry. Wheater said they spray vodka on the costumes (including perhaps the rat king’s head, which is made up of two IKEA wastebaskets) to keep them fresh (a trick also used by figure skaters), so, “if you need vodka, come to the Joffrey”, they have a lot on hand.

Considering all of the above and more, WTTW critic Hedy Weiss quoted her own review of the production in saying that “[t]he whole event brought to mind Tom Stoppard’s observation from “Shakespeare in Love”: “The natural condition [of the theater business] is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster … but strangely enough it all turns out well.” I hope for the same miracle each time I write my blog.