My first performances with the New York City Ballet were as a boy in the party scene of The Nutcracker in December of 1975, not long after my tenth birthday. I didn t pee in my knickers. I was terrified. My real life mother, barely able to free her hand from mine, turned me over to Leslie Ducky Copeland, our wardrobe supervisor, who in turn gave my shaking hand to my stage mother Judith Fugate. Judy held onto that hand for the next 20 years.
Opening nights have a tangible feeling of nervous and charged energy.
Excitement on stage and off. Though my mind is usually on that morning flight to the Caribbean, I find closing nights depressing. It was the premiere of Peter Martins new production of The Sleeping Beauty . I sat in the audience with a cast on my left lower leg, having days before torn my achilles tendon rehearsing the Bluebird variation. How sad to watch the party from the outside window and not be allowed through the door.