Backstage, these costumes are most volunteers’ Waterloo. At a certain point in the first act (I think it is when Clara and Drosselmeyer are cracking nuts for the party children), everyone goes to work dressing the dozen mice. Getting those costumes on is positively an aerobic exercise—it takes two moms per mouse to wrestle them in, and you are literally sweating by the end of it. Frankly, everybody breathes a sigh of relief when they are done with and returned to their hangers for the next night’s cast. Then the mice head back to “Mouseland”—a circle of 12 folding chairs where they hang out, giggle and play cards. Then the volunteers turn their efforts toward dressing the angels, cooks, Mother Ginger’s children and the scores of other characters in the second act.

Last year, I received my allotted comp tickets for a performance and thought I would be happy with just that. In the end, I watched all of Ella’s except for one, including a Saturday night performance for which I bought my tickets so late from the box office window on Laurel Street that I ended up miles high in the Landmark Theater, watching from overhead. I could clearly make out Ella’s tape mark on the floor, and it was there throughout the performance even though she was only on stage for less than a minute.

I grew to love the First Act. The pas de deux by the Harlequin and Columbine dolls is possibly the most beautiful thing I have ever seen on stage. Seeing the male dancer do those leaps in shorts and leg warmers at rehearsal gives a better appreciation for the muscle and control they demand. And the closing waltz in the party scene, with every dancer on stage, perfectly in character—they nailed it at every performance.

As for the mice, my daughter was the one that turned around on the 7 o’clock chime. That was how we told people to look for her, but I knew her from her distinctive leaps. This year as a lamb, she’ll actually see the audience and they’ll see her.

She’ll also be out later this year because she is on stage all the way through the bows. It helps that she is a year older and more responsible, which also means she has an outside chance of arriving home with more than one ballet shoe in the bag. Last year, I retrieved shoes from every corner of the Landmark Theater, and once, the mouse corps coach, Kathie Reinhoel, found one in the gutter in the rain at night on busy Main Street. One pink legwarmer is still haunting the Landmark.

This year we move to the Carpenter Theatre at Richmond CenterStage which is restored and looking gorgeous. I’ll be backstage and working the boutique, and occasionally in the audience watching my lamb on stage, and I can’t wait. The only downside? The probable introduction of a new trail of pink slippers and leg warmers into the Carpenter Theatre.