Premiere in Et cetera: We says goodbye

15.08.2013

They have never yet been separated immediately after a main show. After the Moscow premieres, they always had a tour, a premonition of road adventures and a feeling that their little happy summer life together would last. This year, before the premiere at the Et Cetera on August 14, the excitement and commitment was mixed with a sense of sorrow: the audience will never again see the musical We with such a cast. And we are saying goodbye for a whole year.

The main concert of the anniversary project was overcrowded; Et Cetera hall could barely accommodate all those wishing to appreciate the creativity of talented children of nuclear industry employees from 10 countries and 37 cities. The creative producer of the musical Go and See 2010 Elena Kiper, the director of the performances Dream Station and Peter Pan 2012 Alexey Frandetti came to support NucKids 2013.

The anniversary NucKids also brought together many “seniors” – participants of NucKids of different years. Many of them had to overcome thousands of kilometers and state borders to get to the Moscow premiere of the musical We.

“But it was worth it. Here at the NucKids, we were given a second family, friends, love; it also helped us to decide on our profession. These meetings mean a lot to us. I have already been to the premiere in Tomsk, but decided to come to Moscow to see the play. I want to prolong this pleasure,” said Alexander Nikolaev, a member of Nuclear Kids, who recently became a student of GITIS.

The reaction of the audience who saw We for the first and the last time shows that they too would love to stop the moment to enjoy the colorful show for longer. Adults and children violently applauded Vlad Tashbulatov, who brilliantly played the intriguer Merzlyak, the comical “shorties” Dasha and Natasha Nikolaevs and Lada Kasatkina, the charming Dasha Antonyuk, the direct Vasily Bogdanov, the genuine Ilya Korelsky, the charming Natasha Laktionova and, of course, the “black figures”, which were the basis for the entire set design of the complex hour and a half long musical show. In the final part of the musical, Svetlana Kasyan, a soloist of the State Academic Bolshoi Theater of Russia, came on stage together with the nuclear artists, and the hall erupted in ovation.

After the premiere the audience was in for a surprise – the members of NucKids of different years performed Bloom (Rassvetay) – a song about what is so familiar to the nuclear kids: distances, separations and all-overcoming love that makes meetings possible across miles and years. The event’s final chord was the project’s unofficial anthem, which Nuclear Kids performed after every show.

– Oh, what a pity that this performance will never happen again. How wonderfully they sing! Our People’s Artists and Honored Artists don’t even sing like that,” lamented an administrator in the corridor after the performance, through whose lips, as is well known, truth speaks in the temple of Melpomene.

– But don’t be upset! – Vasya Bogdanov hugged the woman.

 Holding out a “nuclear” suitcase from his props, he added:

 “Here’s a gift for you! When you’re sad, just press the red button and think of us.”

Tears glistened in the eyes of the administrator, accustomed to seeing the “People’s and Honored ones” every day.

Children and adults hugged each other on the stage, Vlad Tashbulatov and Marina Andreeva, embraced, wept in the corridor, and behind the screens, the most touching of the “black figures”, Anton Titov cried.

The day after tomorrow they will go back to their cities. They will experience separation, not yet realizing that each of them also has a magic button inside. This button is the memories of the time spent together, the words of teachers who made them more grow-up and wiser, the faces of friends with whom they will communicate for years to come.

That button is NucKids. A project that that unites forever.

 Natalia Gubareva