Leigha and the Triplets

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Nutcracker on Ice

To my parents' horror, I left graduate school with 2 classes and an intern left to do something I had been wanting to do for years! I told my professors that I was only going to be gone for a year. I had the opportunity to skate with Warner Brothers on Ice.

Unfortunately, the show was postponed and then eventually cancelled. The semester had already started and I was signed up to take my boards in another state, the state I was supposed to be rehearsing in. Thankfully, I received an offer to skate with Nutcracker on Ice, starring Oksana Baiul, Brian Boitano, and Victor Petrenko! Luckily, they were rehearsing in the same state so I could still take my exams!

I thought this opportunity would be enough to get it out of my system, but it didn't work. Nutcracker was a city-a-day tour. We rehearsed from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. Talk about a time change and adjustment to our bodies! Once we finished rehearsals, the tour began. Our daily schedule went something like this:
Wake up
Go to airport
Fly to next city
Drop stuff off at hotel
Go to venue (arena)
Enjoy dinner
Skate the show
Go back to the hotel
Sleep

Talk about not having time to do anything else! One of the funniest memories I have is trying to find my hotel room. No, I wasn't drunk- hotels had this grand idea not to put room numbers on hotel keys. We would get in the elevator and someone would ask us what floor we needed. That would be an easy question for most people, most people don't change hotels daily. I would say 15, they would give me the buzzer, and I would have to guess again. That hotel probably only had 12 floors.

I had a great time, but definitely not what I had set out to do. I got to meet a lot of wonderful people! Oksana had just moved to the US after winning the gold medal in the Olympics. Victor was a sweetheart, along with his wife Nina and his brother. Brian Boitano was very down to earth. It's always nice to meet famous people who are still regular people!



After Nutcracker on Ice, I had planned on returning to finish my masters in Audiology. Then I went to visit a friend of mine who joined up with Disney on Ice after Warner Brothers was cancelled. I popped on my skates, auditioned for the heck of it, and was off to Australia a few months later! Sorry, Mom and Dad! I had good intentions!!

2 comments:

Kei said...

Do you suppose the training hours you kept were good practice for keeping up with triplets? LOL

Great pictures and I can only imagine the wonderful warm memories you must have.

heather@it'stwinsanity said...

What an awesome experience! I'm a forner ice skater too but I never got to do anything that exciting! Good for you for taking a chance and going for it!