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Linden Square featured Kathy McCrohon Dance Center Nutcracker dancers at its Holiday Celebration this past weekend (shown here).  KMDC presents the Nutcracker this coming weekend at the Sorenson Center for the Performing Arts at Babson College.  Show times are 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. on Saturday Dec. 10 and 1 p.m. on Sunday Dec. 11. 

Separately,  Broadway Bound Dance Center of Natick this Saturday will present its  6th Annual Nuts & Bolts holiday performance.  Nuts & Bolts is a jazz, modern, contemporary, lyrical and ballet version of the original Nutcracker Ballet. Students of BBDC from nine towns will be performing in this year’s production, including Allie Queler as Clara, Elise Miwa as Drosselmeyer, Jayme Agranat as the Snow Queen, Leah Friedman as the Sugarplum Fairy, and Spenser Meek as the Nutcracker.  BBDC is also teaming up with the students of the Charles River YMCA’s dance program under the direction of Michele Gillen, a partnership that has run as long as the show has, and puts the cast at over 100 students.

Shows are Saturday, Dec. 10^th at 11am and 3pm at Natick High School.  Tickets are $15 for adults and $12 for students and are available at Broadway Bound Dance Center, Monday – Thursday 3-8pm or at the door on the day of the performance.  Show runs approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes. For further show and ticket information, please call (508) 315-3775 or email: support@bbdcnatick.com.

RELATED: Wellesley Christmas and holiday events

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The event opened with a jazz combo performance from WHS seniors Matt DiBiase and Harvey Xia, along with 2011 grad Tyler Lash. From there, trumpet virtuoso Stephen Burns took over, with one of several performances during the night that recalled former classmates who have died.

Adam Harrington (left, below; an actor who has appeared on “Scrubs,” etc) and Tim Dowling (movie/TV writer, actor, producer) then began their excellent emceeing of the event, which included special thanks to retired Wellesley High teacher Jeanie Goddard, the event’s visionary (below, red outfit). Among the emcees’ stunts: Dowling showed up in a cowardly lion costume, and joined Harrington in a medley of songs from plays they took part in while at the school during the late 1980s and 1990s. Dowling also recounted an ill-advised performance of Batman, which got complicated when he belatedly realized it took a long time for an actor to switch from a rubber Batman suit into a Bruce Wayne suit. They related one story about Harrington’s brother Jay, also an actor, who once accidently mooned the audience during a play on the WHS stage, and later flashed to a clip from one of his TV shows during which he dropped his drawers. They also drew laughs from the crowd for a re-enactment of the old “turf wars” between the gangs of Wellesley Hills and Wellesley (“preps vs the preps”) back before the 1938 Wellesley High School building united the separate parts of town vs. Needham.

The slew of talented performers during the first half of the show included: Olivia Buckley, who sang a song from “A Chorus Line”; poet Nazaleem Cecile Smith, who got the audience involved in reading one of her poems; wife and husband Susan and Rich Bailey who led the singing of a folk tune; and opera singer Eileen (McLoughlin) Christiansen. Current students also performed a number, and a video montage highlighted works of alumni in TV and movies, including from such shows as The Simpsons (the emcees stressed that Bart did not go to WHS).

Olivia Buckley

Nazaleem Cecile Smith

Eileen Christiansen

After intermission, contemporary singers Sarah Blacker and Kayla Ringelheim (and Yancil Cooper) performed separately, with Blacker dedicating her song to her old Wellesley home that got torn down and replaced by a McMansion. Violinist Kelsey Woerner and musical theatre alumni showed off their talents, and  set the stage for Squier, who cranked up the noise level in belting out two old hits, “In the Dark” and “Everybody Wants You.”

Show producer/singer Beth Carrillo Thomas and the Rock Ensemble wrapped up the night, joining the crowd on a heartfelt version of John Lennon and Paul McCarthy’s “In My Life. The rest of the performers as well as Goddard also took the stage, holding aloft LED candles that were also distributed to the audience. Goddard commanded everyone to “Turn Out The Lights” at the end of the song, which created a fitting finale.

Although things weren’t quite finished… Friend of The Swellesley Report Artie Doran and the Rock Ensemble sent the crowd off with a set of school-themed songs, including “School’s Out For The Summer.”

All throughout the show, pianist Chad Weirick and a crew of student volunteers kept the night flowing smoothly. Even when a technical difficulty or two did surface, the performers and emcees handled the situations with ease and good humor.  Dowling chimed in at one point, when an instrument wouldn’t power up, that it was times like these when you wish Wellesley wasn’t a dry town.

(For those of you who didn’t attend or want to see the performance again, keep an eye on Wellesley cable listings, as Wellesley Media was on the scene)

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We told you back in September about the Wicked Fit cable TV show starring pageant contestant trainer and fitness pro Katie Boyd of Wellesley’s Miss Fit business on Rte. 9.  The show debuted this past weekend on the Style Network (have to confess we missed the episode) and Katie has gotten lots of press of late.

What we didn’t realize, until contacted this week by the owners of Linden Street’s Fitness Club for Women, was that they too are part of the show.  Their business has been up and running for 30 years. Sisters Cheryl Steele and Michele Shea write: “This show is based in Boston and highlights the life of a local trainer, Katie, owner of Miss Fit as she pushes, yells and screams vulgarity at her beauty pageant contestant clients.  The Fitness Club for Women is brought on the show as the competitive gym and exposes real issues and personal pain that the sisters experienced from Katie, who used to work for them at FCFW.”

Asked about where the drama unfolds on the show in Wellesley, the sisters say to look for The Cottage, on Church Street, in front of The Gap on Central Street and on the Hunnewell softball fields on Washington Street.

“One episode was filmed at a charity ball called An Important Pink Party benefiting breast cancer.  Both Miss Fit and The Fitness Club for Women were present, and the episode was about which business could raise the most money for the cause. Cheryl and Michele shown here in the photo are on stage auctioning off their fitness package worth $3000.00.  The night was a great success and although there was a lot of drama and real emotions between the competing businesses, in the end breast cancer awareness won.  The event raised over $10,000,” the sisters write.

* Women’s fitness centers are definitely on the outreach program of late. We also were contacted this week by Body in Motion, which is also in Linden Square. It has expanded its space (“designed with a clean, contemporary, urban-chic ambiance and neutral color palette”), above National Jeans, twice this year to accommodate what it says is a booming business in BarSculpt and Pilates classes.

RELATED: Sneak peek at Wellesley gym owner’s new reality show

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Actors from the London Stage will perform Shakespeare’s The Tempest this Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7pm at Wellesley College’s Alumnae Hall. The performances are free and open to the public. Wellesley College describes The Tempest as conjuring up “a world of innocent lovers, bawdy buffoons, mystical beings and a spectacular storm that transforms everyone in its path.”

You know, sort of like a WHS night football game crowd.

The actors are in residency at the college this week, also conducting workshops for students.

Free parking is available for the performances at the Davis Parking Facility. Directions and a map of the College are online at www.wellesley.edu/Admin/travel.html. Wheelchair accessible. For disability services contact Jim Wice at 781-283-2434 or jwice@wellesley.edu.

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Jonathan Segal, who grew up in Wellesley and headed to Hollywood after graduating from College, was back in town recently to help launch his new film “Norman” (Facebook page here). The movie about a troubled teen debuted locally at the MFA and hits AMC theatres this week in limited release. More from the Milford Daily News.

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“Magic is great fun,” he says in the article, “and when I raise the spirits of others through magic, I raise my own as well.”

Let’s just hope he doesn’t give Wellesley public officials any bad ideas…

Stubbs visited the Wellesley Townsman a couple of years ago to show off a trick involving the “tearable” Boston Globe:

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Tickets have gone on sale for the Performing Arts Showcase taking place the Saturday after Thanksgiving at Wellesley High School as part of the Turn Out the Lights festivities celebrating the end of the old school.

A star-studded line-up of Wellesley High graduates has been assembled, with new performers being added seemingly daily. It will be hosted by Hollywood film writer Tim Dowling (WHS ’92) and actor Adam Harrington (WHS ’96), and performers will include opera singer Joanna Mongiardo, poet Nazaleem Cecile Smith (WHS ’70), singer Sarah Blacker (WHS ’2001), hip hop artist Cam Meekins (WHS ’11) and more.

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I mentioned recently that Katie Boyd of the Miss Fit Club on Rte. 9 in Wellesley had scored a reality show on the Style Network called Wicked Fit starting Oct. 23. Not sure whether to be scared or amused, but here’s a taste of it:

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