A sexy Christmas with the Smuin Ballet
REVIEW

Michael Wade Simpson, Special to The Chronicle

Monday, November 27, 2006

There are as many holiday entertainment options as there are arts organizations desperately in need of cash, but how many of them revolve around sex? Michael Smuin should rename his sexy variety show, "The X-mas Ballet." If you've got it, after all, why not flaunt it? Smuin Ballet's version of winter wonder, which premiered at the Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek on Friday night, is about as far from the "Nutcracker" as you can get. If only it were daring enough to be X-rated.

As it is, in a new, improved version for 2006, Grandma can still take in Act 1, the all-in-white, goody-goody part, a bunch of traditional carols, motets and other churchy-sounding bits of music turned into three-minute ballets. Patience will be rewarded for everyone else, however, in Act 2, when the heat gets turned up.

Ballet a jolly way to start the season
Michael Smuin's annual Christmas production captures the holiday spirit with works both cheesy and lovely
By Mary Ellen Hunt
TIMES CORRESPONDENT

The post-Thanksgiving crowd at the Lesher Center showed no tryptophan drowsiness at the opening of Michael Smuin's annual favorite, "The Christmas Ballet," which made its bow last weekend with spiffy new costumes by Sandra Woodall and newly designed scenery by Douglas Schmidt and Paul Swensen.

Smuin's flagship productions are usually elaborate affairs, and this year's refurbished holiday staple benefits from having more sparkles and fringe. In the first half, new white drapery suggests an elegant ballroom with outsized lacy snowflakes hovering overhead, while the second half is bathed in yards of Christmas crimson velvet, punctuated by dozens of fluffy, white, beachball-sized "Santa cap" pompoms.