🎄Christmas Spectacular ⛄
Starring the
💃 Radio City Rockettes 💃
The Rockettes are an American precision dance company. Founded in 1925 in St. Louis, Missouri, they have performed at Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan, New York City, since 1932. Until 2015 they also had a touring company.
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History
Early years
Early years
The Rockettes were originally inspired by the Tiller Girls, a precision dance company of the United Kingdom
established by John Tiller in the 1890s. Tiller sent the first troupe
of Tiller Girls to perform in the United States in 1900, and eventually
there were three lines of them working on Broadway. In 1922, choreographer Russell Markert saw one of these troupes, known as the Tiller Rockets, perform in the Ziegfeld Follies
and was inspired to create his own version with American dancers. As
Markert would later recall, "If I ever got a chance to get a group of
American girls who would be taller and have longer legs and could do
really complicated tap routines and eye-high kicks, they'd really knock
your socks off."
The Rockettes have long been represented by the American Guild of Variety Artists. In 1967, they won a month-long strike for better working conditions, which was led by AGVA salaried officer Penny Singleton.
In August 2002, contract negotiations for the troupe's veteran members
resulted in a buyout by the owners of The Radio City Music Hall. Roughly
a fourth of the veteran Rockettes were offered retirement options,
while the remaining dancers were offered the opportunity to re-audition.
During the Christmas season, the Rockettes present five shows a day, seven days a week. Perhaps their best-known routine is an eye-high leg kick in perfect unison in a chorus line, which they include at the end of every performance. Their style of dance is a mixture of modern dance and classic ballet. Auditions to become a Rockette are always in April in New York City. Women who audition must show proficiency in several genres of dancing, mainly ballet, tap, modern, and jazz. Normally, 400 to 500 women audition yearly.
The Radio City Christmas Spectacular is performed annually at Radio City Music Hall. Numerous other shows are performed in American and Canadian cities by a touring company of Rockettes. It is one of the most-watched live shows in the United States, with over 2 million viewers per year.
The Radio City Christmas Spectacular is performed annually at Radio City Music Hall. Numerous other shows are performed in American and Canadian cities by a touring company of Rockettes. It is one of the most-watched live shows in the United States, with over 2 million viewers per year.
The Rockettes have performed annually at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade since 1957 as the last pre-parade acts to perform. The NBC Rockefeller Center Tree-Lighting Ceremony also traditionally includes a performance by the dance troupe.
The Christmas Spectacular Starring the Radio City Rockettes is an annual musical holiday stage show presented at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
The 90-minute show features more than 140 performers and an original
musical score, and combines singing, dancing, and humor with traditional
scenes. The star performers are the women's precision dance troupe the Rockettes. Since the first version was presented in 1933, the show has become a New York Christmas tradition. The 2018/2019 production runs from November 9, 2018 to January 1, 2019
History
The "Christmas Spectacular" began in 1933 when the Music Hall
presented lavish live stage shows along with the latest Hollywood
feature films. The first Christmas show was produced December 21, 1933,
along with the RKO musical movie Flying Down to Rio and The Night Before Christmas, a Walt Disney Silly Symphony, and ran for two weeks. This was just one year after the opening of the Music Hall in 1932. The
show was created by the Music Hall's stage producer Leon Leonidoff and
designer Vincente Minnelli. It consisted of an overture with Ernö Rapée and the Radio City Symphony; a solo on the Mighty Wurlitzer Organ; a performance by Jan Peerce; a Toy Shop Ballet; The Rockettes' performance of "Parade of the Wooden Soldiers", choreographed by their founder, Russell Markert; and "The Living Nativity".
These last two scenes have continued in every edition of the annual
show up to the present day. The Christmas show, like all the Radio City
stage shows, continued to be produced and choreographed by Leonidoff and
Markert through the early decades of the Music Hall's history. Later, Peter Gennaro and others produced the annual show.
In addition to the annual Christmas show at Radio City, road
companies have presented a touring version in theaters throughout the
United States. The first Christmas Spectacular outside of Radio City was presented in Branson, Missouri at the Grand Palace Theatre in 1994. The Rockettes, having been founded in St. Louis
(where they were called the Missouri Rockets), returned home for the
extravaganza. The successful show launched a national tour the following
year. The original touring show was presented in conjunction with Herschend Family Entertainment Corporation
and ran from 1994 to 2003. In 2008, a new tour consisting of the 2007
edition was launched, playing at select theaters and arena venues around
the country.
In 2007, to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Christmas show, an entirely new edition of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular
was updated, designed, and choreographed under the direction of Linda
Haberman. For a brief time, it was one of the few shows playing in New
York in December 2007, during a strike which closed most Broadway theaters. This edition of the show was filmed and has been released on DVD.
In 2011, the show was titled The Rockettes Magical Journey.
The production featured an updated 3DLIVE scene and new musical numbers
in addition to "The Parade of Wooden Soldier" and "The Living
Nativity." The 2011 program's story focused on the Rockettes as they
traveled through the Northern Forest to the castle of the Humbug King
who had stolen toys from Santa Claus’ workshop. In 2012, a slightly
altered version was titled The Rockettes Celebration!,
celebrating the 85th anniversary of the Rockettes with an additional
scene. In 2013, an updated finale entitled "Snow" replaced "Let
Christmas Shine." In 2014, Julie Branam was hired as director and
choreographer of the Christmas Spectacular. The 3DLIVE scene was
removed and restoring the number "Rag Dolls" as well as adding an
updated subplot surrounding Ben and Patrick, two young boys trying to
find a Christmas present for their younger sister.
Radio City Music Hall
Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue located at 1260 Avenue of the Americas at Rockefeller Center in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Nicknamed the Showplace of the Nation,
it was for a time the leading tourist destination in the city. The
venue is notable as the headquarters for the precision dance company, the Rockettes.
Radio City Music Hall was built on a plot of land that was originally intended for a Metropolitan Opera House. The opera house plans were canceled in 1929, leading to the construction of Rockefeller Center. The new complex included two theaters, the "International Music Hall" and the Center Theatre, as part of the "Radio City" portion of Rockefeller Center. The 5,960-seat Music Hall was the larger of the two venues. It was largely successful until the 1970s, when declining patronage nearly drove the Music Hall to bankruptcy. Radio City Music Hall was designated a New York City Landmark in May 1978, and the Music Hall was restored and allowed to remain open.
Radio City Music Hall was designed by Edward Durell Stone and Donald Deskey in the Art Deco style. One of the more notable parts of the Music Hall is its large auditorium, which was the world's largest when the Hall first opened. The Music Hall also contains a variety of art.
Radio City Music Hall was built on a plot of land that was originally intended for a Metropolitan Opera House. The opera house plans were canceled in 1929, leading to the construction of Rockefeller Center. The new complex included two theaters, the "International Music Hall" and the Center Theatre, as part of the "Radio City" portion of Rockefeller Center. The 5,960-seat Music Hall was the larger of the two venues. It was largely successful until the 1970s, when declining patronage nearly drove the Music Hall to bankruptcy. Radio City Music Hall was designated a New York City Landmark in May 1978, and the Music Hall was restored and allowed to remain open.
Radio City Music Hall was designed by Edward Durell Stone and Donald Deskey in the Art Deco style. One of the more notable parts of the Music Hall is its large auditorium, which was the world's largest when the Hall first opened. The Music Hall also contains a variety of art.
History
Planning
Planning
The construction of Rockefeller Center occurred between 1932 and 1940 on land that John D. Rockefeller Jr. leased from Columbia University. The Rockefeller Center site was originally supposed to be occupied by a new opera house for the Metropolitan Opera. By 1928, Benjamin Wistar Morris and designer Joseph Urban were hired to come up with blueprints for the house. However, the new building was too expensive for the opera to fund by itself, and it needed an endowment, and the project ultimately gained the support of John D. Rockefeller Jr. The planned opera house was canceled in December 1929 due to various issues, but Rockefeller made a deal with RCA to develop Rockefeller Center as a mass media complex with four theaters. This was later downsized to two theaters.
Samuel Roxy Rothafel, a successful theater operator who was renowned for his domination of the city's theater industry, joined the center's advisory board in 1930. He offered to build two theaters: a large vaudeville "International Music Hall" on the northernmost block with more than 6,200 seats, and the smaller 3,500-seat "RKO Roxy" movie theater on the southernmost block. The idea for these theaters was inspired by Roxy's failed expansion of the 5,920-seat Roxy Theatre on 50th Street, one and a half blocks away. Roxy also envisioned an elevated promenade between the two theaters, but this was never published in any of the official blueprints.
In September 1931, a group of NBC managers and architects went to tour Europe to find performers and look at theater designs. However, the group did not find any significant architectural details that they could use in the Radio City theaters. In any case, Roxy's friend Peter B. Clark turned out to have much more innovative designs for the proposed theaters than the Europeans did.
Roxy had a list of design requests for the Music Hall. First, he did not want the hall to have either a large balcony over the box seating, or rows of box seating facing each other, as implemented in opera houses. This resulted in a "tiered" balcony system where several shallow balconies were built at the back of the theater, cantilevered off the back wall. Second, Roxy specified that the stage contain a central section with three parts, so that the sets could be changed easily. Roxy also wanted red seats because he believed it would make the theater successful. He wished for an auditorium with an oval shape because contemporary wisdom held that oval-shaped auditoriums had better acoustic qualities. Finally, he wanted to build at least 6,201 seats in the Music Hall so it would be larger than the Roxy Theatre. There were only 5,960 audience seats, but Roxy counted exactly 6,201 seats by including elevator stools, orchestra pit seats, and dressing-room chairs.
Despite Roxy's specific requests for design features, the Music Hall's general design was determined by the Associated Architects, the architectural consortium that was designing the rest of Rockefeller Center. The Radio City Music Hall was designed by architect Edward Durell Stone and interior designer Donald Deskey in the Art Deco style. Stone used Indiana Limestone for the facade, as with all the other buildings in Rockefeller Center, but he also included some distinguishing features. Three 90-foot-tall (27 m) signs with the hall's name on it were placed on the facade, while intricately ornamented fire escapes were installed on the walls facing 50th and 51st Streets. Inside, Stone designed 165-foot-long (50 m) Grand Foyer with a large staircase, balconies, and mirrors, and commissioned Ezra Winter for the grand foyer's 2,400-square-foot (220 m2) mural, "Quest for the Fountain of Eternal Youth". Deskey, meanwhile, was selected as part of a competition for interior designers for the Music Hall. He had reportedly called Winter's painting "God-awful" and regarded the interior and exterior as not much better. To make the Music Hall presentable in his opinion, Deskey designed upholstery and furniture that was custom to the Hall. Deskey's plan was regarded the best of 35 submissions, and he ultimately used the rococo style in his interior design.
The International Music Hall later became the Radio City Music Hall. The names "Radio City" and "Radio City Music Hall" derive from one of the complex's first tenants, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), who planned a mass media complex called Radio City on the west side of Rockefeller Center.
Samuel Roxy Rothafel, a successful theater operator who was renowned for his domination of the city's theater industry, joined the center's advisory board in 1930. He offered to build two theaters: a large vaudeville "International Music Hall" on the northernmost block with more than 6,200 seats, and the smaller 3,500-seat "RKO Roxy" movie theater on the southernmost block. The idea for these theaters was inspired by Roxy's failed expansion of the 5,920-seat Roxy Theatre on 50th Street, one and a half blocks away. Roxy also envisioned an elevated promenade between the two theaters, but this was never published in any of the official blueprints.
In September 1931, a group of NBC managers and architects went to tour Europe to find performers and look at theater designs. However, the group did not find any significant architectural details that they could use in the Radio City theaters. In any case, Roxy's friend Peter B. Clark turned out to have much more innovative designs for the proposed theaters than the Europeans did.
Roxy had a list of design requests for the Music Hall. First, he did not want the hall to have either a large balcony over the box seating, or rows of box seating facing each other, as implemented in opera houses. This resulted in a "tiered" balcony system where several shallow balconies were built at the back of the theater, cantilevered off the back wall. Second, Roxy specified that the stage contain a central section with three parts, so that the sets could be changed easily. Roxy also wanted red seats because he believed it would make the theater successful. He wished for an auditorium with an oval shape because contemporary wisdom held that oval-shaped auditoriums had better acoustic qualities. Finally, he wanted to build at least 6,201 seats in the Music Hall so it would be larger than the Roxy Theatre. There were only 5,960 audience seats, but Roxy counted exactly 6,201 seats by including elevator stools, orchestra pit seats, and dressing-room chairs.
Despite Roxy's specific requests for design features, the Music Hall's general design was determined by the Associated Architects, the architectural consortium that was designing the rest of Rockefeller Center. The Radio City Music Hall was designed by architect Edward Durell Stone and interior designer Donald Deskey in the Art Deco style. Stone used Indiana Limestone for the facade, as with all the other buildings in Rockefeller Center, but he also included some distinguishing features. Three 90-foot-tall (27 m) signs with the hall's name on it were placed on the facade, while intricately ornamented fire escapes were installed on the walls facing 50th and 51st Streets. Inside, Stone designed 165-foot-long (50 m) Grand Foyer with a large staircase, balconies, and mirrors, and commissioned Ezra Winter for the grand foyer's 2,400-square-foot (220 m2) mural, "Quest for the Fountain of Eternal Youth". Deskey, meanwhile, was selected as part of a competition for interior designers for the Music Hall. He had reportedly called Winter's painting "God-awful" and regarded the interior and exterior as not much better. To make the Music Hall presentable in his opinion, Deskey designed upholstery and furniture that was custom to the Hall. Deskey's plan was regarded the best of 35 submissions, and he ultimately used the rococo style in his interior design.
The International Music Hall later became the Radio City Music Hall. The names "Radio City" and "Radio City Music Hall" derive from one of the complex's first tenants, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), who planned a mass media complex called Radio City on the west side of Rockefeller Center.
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