By Carrie Crockett
Photo by Ford Miller
At the age of 10, my dreams of being the next Nadia Comaneci in gymnastics career ended abruptly when I horribly broke my dominant left forearm into a U-shape. I was attempting a round-off, back twist in the front yard for the first time–without a spot.
I know. Very dumb.
My dreams of being popular at my new middle school as a cheerleader were dashed not by an injury, but because it really bothered me that everything we did with an arm raise had to be done with the right arm, and I was the only leftie on the squad. I loved going to cheer camp with the University of Memphis cheerleaders, but I hated being scolded for trying to sneak in some left arms. It made my brain tickle and put me in a bad mood to do everything right-handed. The other girls and the coach said I should just learn to do it like everybody else. (Hmmm, I’m getting an idea for my next article. Calling all lefties!) So, I quit cheer after a year.
Before starting ninth grade, I had gotten pretty good at, then dropped out of, two sports. But my love of dance and tumbling was still very much alive.
And then, in a new high school where I knew only one student, I made a friend who danced classical ballet at the Memphis Orpheum with professionals. (Yes, there’s an Orpheum in Memphis, too). I wanted to learn how to do what she was doing, and so I discovered ballet. Not the kind of ballet we had been doing in P.E. class where we just learned what a movement sort of looked like and what it was called. I mean highly technical, classical ballet. It was safer than gymnastics, used both sides of the body equally unlike cheer, and was more of an art than a sport.
I started proper ballet classes when I was 16, which is ridiculously late, and I paid for the lessons myself with babysitting money. When I started Tulane, I took a dance class every semester even when it inconvenienced my schedule.
At the age of 22, when serious dancers are well under way in a career, I discovered a new Russian Ballet School in Memphis. I started to learn the Vaganova method with serious teens and older adults, all of us drawn to this extremely rare chance to learn from a recently emigrated ex-Bolshoi dancer. I didn’t care that I was never going to dance “seriously.” I loved what I was doing and went for all the knowledge I could get.
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Flash forward to 2026. I’ve been watching my daughter dance on stage at the New Orleans Orpheum for years with the New Orleans Ballet Theatre. All through my early life, I danced and tumbled and worked very hard, but I never really got a chance to focus on any one thing long enough to reach a master level. I never got a chance to show it off. It was always something sort of missing in my life.
When I saw the call for extras in Dracula, I pounced.
This will be my second year in Dracula. I may not perform even a step of what I’d call ballet in the show, but I do a lovely, high-society box step I believe I excel at. I get to dance on stage, however briefly, at the Orpheum, as I watched my friend do when I was a teenager in Memphis. And my daughter is up there in her own extra role. I don’t know that she’s thrilled to have Mama backstage, but I’m very proud to be in a production with her.
“I’m OK with her dancing on stage with me because I have a better part,” my daughter, Willow eighth grader Lucinda DiMunno said, “although she gets to look very special shoving a crucifix into one of the main guy’s back.”
At Willow, look around you. We’re very lucky. Many students, teachers, and probably parents are heavily into the arts, whether or not we teach or learn or practice them directly. It may be why we chose this school. Some of us may get to pursue the arts as a career or CA. Some of us may keep up our passion for the arts as a hobby or elective.
Or we may put that passion on hold for decades. Everywhere you look, there’s probably somebody who had an absolute passion for an art or a sport–someone who worked very hard at it. But life got in the way, and the practice fell away with the responsibilities of adulthood and the realities of the job market.
But the passion did not.
When the right opportunity arises to jump back in, I say, go for it! It’s almost better to have this experience now that I’m totally free to just enjoy it with absolutely no pressure. I’m certainly not going to become a professional dancer at this stage of my life, but I get to pretend I am for a couple dozen eight counts on that big stage. Believe you me, I will enjoy my 15 seconds of fame in Dracula.
And what a ballet to be an extra in! Although extras may be on the edges and in the background, I believe we add a sense of the real world to the production. Don’t think I’m just being grandiose in saying this. Dracula choreographer, Oliver Halkowich, told me so.
“Ballet dancers are a very niche group and come from an insular world,” Halkowich said. “I like the mix of people I get with the extras so the production begins to look more like the real world.”
So, who are the other extras in Dracula?
There are the children and teens, including my daughter, who are mainly from the world of ballet. They get to dance in The Nutcracker for fairly prominent roles, but Dracula gives them a chance to be a much smaller group of extras in a production geared more for adults.
“I get to scream as loud as I can at the end of my part,” DiMunno said. “It gives me a sore throat, but it’s exhilarating because my powerful voice takes over the stage.”
The adult extras come from a wide range of backgrounds. There’s a former professional dancer from Honduras who moved to the U.S. and had a baby. She was thrilled to find a low-pressure way to keep dancing on stage while taking care of her toddler. There’s a recent Tulane grad who initially auditioned because her friends were dancers in Dracula, but she continues year after year because she loves the experience. And Ford Miller, a lawyer during the week, comes from the world of performance art and taekwondo outside of work.
“I’m always looking for a new mountain to climb,” Miller said, “and I’m fascinated by the rehearsal process. It takes a certain degree of maturity to not be the center of attention, to be the person you don’t really notice who causes a reaction in a main character.”
For many extra parts, “you’re not doing it right if the audience notices you,” as Miller said, but there are some parts where we get to build our own little background. Halkowich likes things to be a little weird, particularly for this Halloween ballet, and he encourages the extras to add our own little quirks.
I, for one, milk this for all its worth. When we gather to gossip about the shocking events unfolding between two female main characters on stage, I jump up obnoxiously to see over a taller extra to get a better view. This is the same tall extra who, in a previous scene, has pushed me with my crucifix out of the way to put her garlic around a main character’s neck. With the choreographer’s blessing, we have created a little beef that runs through different scenes.
“The third act is all about the two of you,” Halkowich joked with us in rehearsal. “She stole your man once, and you put a curse on her forever for it.”
Working with Halkowich as an extra is wonderful because he wants us to bring our ideas to rehearsal to add an extra layer of dimension and reality to the overall effect of the ballet.
“It’s nice to have a group of people come in who are not necessarily ballet dancers but appreciate the art form and, for whatever reason, want to be a part of a show,” Halkowich said. “Ballet has been the great love affair of my life, and anytime someone shows interest in this thing I care about, I am very happy.”
There’s something else about a choreographer working with extras that any teacher (or parent) could relate to.
“Having extras makes me really think about how I can explain my point of view and my musicality with people who haven’t grown up with the language and terms I use with dancers,” Halkowich said. “It focuses me and forces me to be clear, which also helps me to actually look at what I am trying to say as a choreographer.”
So, I’m putting out a call. Are you a student, teacher, or parent who might be interested in developing or rediscovering your dance skills? Are you an actor or former actor looking to expand your range and experience? Have you always wanted to perform on a historic stage like the Orpheum in front of a paying audience?
Don’t be afraid to admit it. If you like the spotlight, and your daily life doesn’t give you the chance to show off the skills you worked hard to develop, maybe being an extra is for you. NOBT’s production at the Orpheum of Swan Lake in May will likely have both student and adult extras. Go to www.nobt.org for info about auditions in early spring. And if you’d like to see Dracula at the Orpheum as an audience member October 29, 30, and 31, you can buy tickets here. And, of course, next year’s Dracula will need both children and adult extras.
If there’s something you always wanted to do, but life got in the way, don’t wait for ‘someday.’ Just go for it. Someday is always today, and no role is small on a big stage.
