A large makeshift tub is being assembled
on Brooklyn College’s Walt Whitman Theater stage and more than
a dozen stagehands are crawling on their hands and knees arranging
rubber tubing inside it.
Stage manager Nicoletta Arlia, a six-year veteran of the Whitman
theater, walks by with droplets of sweat on her nose. Who knew
making an ice rink could be such heated work?
Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts is doing the seemingly
impossible. Despite a jam-packed slate of performances at the
Whitman Theater, the performing arts production company, also
known as BCBC, has devoted 600 man-hours – in one weekend – to
create an awe-inspiring spectacle, "The Nutcracker On Ice,"
as performed by the St. Petersburg State Ice Ballet.
The 45-year-old stage has seen its share of wear and tear, explains
lighting director Steve Bailey, a repository of 21 years of Whitman
Theater stories. This stage is used not only for BCBC’s variety
of shows – ranging from Jewish Klezmer music to Broadway shows,
but also by Brooklyn College for its functions, by 10 dance schools
for their recitals and by 35 high schools and junior high schools
who hold their graduation ceremonies there.
The 2,400-seat theater is, however, a professional performance
space and the sixth largest in New York City, according to Bailey.
Despite being so heavily trafficked, each year for the past five
years BCBC has taken two full days out of the theater’s schedule
to work around the clock and put the stage to the ultimate test
– transforming it into a skating rink in just 29 hours.
Beat the clock
On Saturday, Nov. 24 at 8 am, the theater crew rolls up their
sleeves and gets to work to create a 38-foot by 41-foot ice rink
for the 34-member Russian ensemble of skaters. The show will
be – if all goes smoothly – performed on 5 tons of ice.
There were initial concerns about whether or not the stage would
support the weight of the ice, explains Bailey, but their calculations
predicted an optimistic outcome.
The stage is being prepped to serve as a gigantic ice cube tray.
The theater staff, and ice company contractor IDM Silver, construct
a tub for the ice out of sheets of plastic with a low wall around
the outside. This is then placed on top of a layer of Styrofoam,
which insulates the ice from any heat from the stage.
Green tarps are then spread over the plastic. This triple layer
ensures that the storeroom beneath the stage, containing expensive
grand pianos, is kept safe from dripping water, according to
17-year Whitman vet Chet Green, who notes that the team has learned
from experience – and occasionally the inexperience – of other
contractors.
Canvas fire hoses are hooked up to a "chiller" in the
parking lot behind Walt Whitman Hall. The 24-foot truck is one
large refrigeration unit, cooling a glycol-water solution and
pushing it through large fire hoses and into small flexible,
plastic tubing.
The process "requires an enormous amount of electricity,"
explains Bailey. "This is a production on a big scale, using
the equivalent of 250 refrigerators, pulling about 700 amps –
compared to a refrigerator, which pulls 2 to 3 amps."
The tubing is rolled out onto the tarps on giant, waist-high
wooden spools. The workers show strain as they unspool it over
the tarps, and push the tubes flat, and snap on spacers to keep
the tubes evenly apart.
The laying of this groundwork is a carefully orchestrated – and
timed – endeavor, as it must be completed before the finely chopped
bags of ice arrive. If the enormous bags of ice arrive too early,
they begin to melt and harden into blocks, which require more
manual labor to break apart.
The 11,000 pounds of bagged ice arrive late, and the race is
on. The more time the crew can make up here, the more time they
have to make the ice floor. The more time they have, the thicker
and safer the ice will be.
The bags of chopped ice are hauled into the tub, opened and poured
around the tubing. This is the foundation for the ice rink, as
gravel is the foundation for a driveway, explains Bailey.
Except, instead of tar, the ice is watered down. When it freezes,
workers with giant metal rakes – minus the teeth – smooth out
the bumps on the ice like human Zamboni machines. And then another
layer of water is sprayed over the ice. After it freezes, the
new layer is scraped flat. This process happens over and over
throughout the afternoon and evening until the company’s warm-ups
Sunday morning.
Put to the test
With skaters leaping four and five feet high, making an ice floor
is a serious business. Bumpy, brittle ice is not an option. But
that doesn’t mean the crew doesn’t have a sense of humor. Green
confesses that in past years they’ve placed plastic fish in the
ice to surprise the skaters.
When the figure skaters do put their blades to the ice, they
are ideally gliding across ice that is at least 4-inches thick,
says Bailey. If the ice is too thin, the skaters could slice
open a tube of glycol with their skates – sending the anti-freeze
spraying out across the ice. It’s happened before, says Bailey.
The ice floor also has to be chilled to the precise temperature.
Too cold and it could become brittle, cracking into hundreds
of pieces when one of the figure skaters leaps upon it.
The ice becomes a proving ground Sunday morning, and the company
skates, leaps and spins on what seems to be perfect ice. They
move on and off the ice via carpeted ramps that take them into
the wings. The ramps get a lot of use as there are a multitude
of costume changes; the company travels with a wardrobe of 150
costumes – including powdered wigs and tutu confections.
On to the show
This lavish production of "The Nutcracker" also includes
several scenes with falling snow, made by an actual snow machine,
explains Arlia. (Anything else, such as paper or plastic, would
get in the way of the ice skates.)
"The kids love it," says Arlia. "Back here, you
can hear their reactions."
This production was choreographed by former Kirov Ballet principal
dancer Konstantin Rassadin. The show, performed twice on Sunday,
Nov. 25 because of the demand for tickets, made the most of every
inch of the ice, squeezing up to 18 skaters at a time who performed
a unique, athletic combination of classical ballet and figure
skating.
Julie Pareles, producing director for BCBC, notes that "The
Nutcracker" ticket prices ($22 to $25) were kept affordable
despite the cost of mounting the production.
"The technical costs are considerable," admits Pareles.
"It costs us $10,000 just to put ice on the stage, and more
for the performers." BCBC doesn’t charge more for their
tickets to these shows, she said, because "we want to make
shows affordable for Brooklynites. That’s our mission and our
goal – to attract as many people as possible."
Pareles is planning to bring "The Nutcracker on Ice"
back next year, too, "pending funding."
Breaking it down
It may be a delicate operation to construct the ice rink, but
taking it apart is another story.
After the shows, the ice temperature is lowered to 8 degrees
Fahrenheit, says Bailey, and the crew breaks the ice apart with
sledgehammers. The breakdown process takes hours of labor, too,
depending on the type of tubing used.
The ice is hauled into the backyard of the theater where it lingers
for weeks until it melts away.
"The most amazing thing," said Bailey, "is Sunday
night – to see the ice floor gone and to say, ’There was an ice
show here five hours ago.’"
