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Leslie and Michael, who own Saratoga Dance, went to see the Saturday matinee of the new hit play Nikolai and the Others (written by Richard Nelson, directed by David Cromer) at Lincoln Center this past weekend. Here’s a great mini review Michael wrote afterwards:

The play Nikolai and the Others is a unique, mature, complex and very enjoyable show which packs the happenings of the expat Russian artist community in the US into one fictional weekend getaway in 1948. All the famous Russians of the day in the arts- composer Nikolai Nabokov (cousin of Vladimir), composer Igor Stravinsky, his assistant and friend Lucia Davidova, the famous actor Vladimir Sokoloff, and of course, George Balanchine- get together to honor their ailing friend, artist and set designer for the Ballets Russes, Sergey Sudeikin. In addition to the core group, current spouses, exes, and new lovers were in attendance for the weekend. The play references the cold war, the CIA and the hunt for Communists in our midst, as well as the age old problem of funding for the arts. This also happens to be the period when Balanchine and Stravinsky are putting the finishing touches on Orpheus (the first ballet performed by the brand new New York City Ballet). The beautiful Natalia Alonso appears as Maria Tallchief, Balanchine’s wife at the time, for a rehearsal with Nicholas Magallanes portrayed by Michael Rosen. We thought the casting was excellent! Our family friend, Haviland Morris, played Lucia Davidova, the hostess of the weekend at her Westport, Connecticut farmhouse and her performance was superb. George Balanchine was played by Michael Cerveris, the brother of Leslie’s friend Marisa Cerveris from her NYCB days and owner of ByMarisa Dancewear. Live piano music was played on stage as an integral part of the show by Kolya Sudeikin (played by Alan Schmuckler) who was Sergey’s nephew and Balanchine’s rehearsal pianist. It was also neat to have the actors speaking normal English during their “Russian weekend” and only using the Russian accents when “speaking English” to the non-Russian characters. With so much fit into 2 ½ hours, it inspired us to want to know more about the personal lives of all the characters, especially Balanchine. As the Playwright noted: His hope was to “show a world where the creating of art – in this case dance – lives side by side…with all other essential and necessary functions of human life; such as eating, drinking, dying, sleeping, dreaming, making love, laughing, remembering, disappointing, and attempting to be generous.” Nikolai and the Others does all that and more.