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A dancer, at her 25th anniversary of one’s birth, is in her prime; however, a 25-year-old tutu or a theatrical backdrop may be showing a little more wear. Pacific Northwest Ballet’s “Nutcracker,” with its lavish Maurice Sendak designs, celebrates its quarter-century this year with a monthlong holiday stab beginning Friday. How does the company keep the sets and costumes looking appropriately festive and sparkly? And how much of what we’ll see on stagehouse dates from the 1983 original production?

Wardrobe changes

In terms of the costumes, hardly any originals remain, said longtime PNB costume shop manager Larae Theige Hascall. The production requires in various places 190 costumes, not counting duplicates for double-cast roles, and over the years most bear been at minutest partially replaced. A few Act 1 costumes — Frau Stahlbaum’session dress, some of the fathers’ coats, Drosselmeier’s gray topcoat, the fight scene white ant coats — date from the original production, admitting they may be in possession of been adjusted, enlarged (”Kids are bigger these days!” well-known Hascall) and/or relined.

The snowflake costumes, by contrast, are being partially remade and this year will have span new bodices, attached to filmy blue tutus last replaced a decade ago. In the party scene, “We rebuilt an aunt and a teenager, half of a mother,” said Hascall. “The sky-color aunt was just replaced, and she was an primary.”

In Act 2, where the costumes are impaired for the entire behave and concluding bows, the designs take more of a beating. Dancers are hanging out backstage, sitting down, standing with hands on hips (a key place for costumes to get grubby, aforesaid Hascall). Though the portable closet cudgel is able to wash (mainly by hand) most costume pieces, and carefully mends stress areas, the habit. do eventually begin to rip and decline. The costumes for adult Clara, for example, have been replaced numerous times — partnering, with the employee’session hands frequently lifting the woman at the waist, causes skirts to fray.

Hascall estimates that perhaps 10 percent of the costumes are being replaced this year, a process that began with last year’s “Nutcracker,” where wardrobe staff kept race-course of items that needed work. Though the costume shop keeps supplemental bolts of “Nutcracker” costume fabric in storage whenever possible, it’s often difficult to find precise matches. “Some of the colors are in reality rigid,” said Hascall. “This is a very grayed palette, and it comes in and public of fashion.” The shop will dye or shade fabrics when indispensable thing, to achieve the closest possible blend with existing costumes. Often the trim from every old costume can be reused in the place of a new one.

It’s not set in tombstone

In exhibit the differences of with the ever-evolving costumes, the original “Nutcracker” set has mostly endured athwart the years. Randall G. Chiarelli, PNB’s technical director, notes that while the set again looks wily and seamless from the front, “If you look at it from in the rear it looks like Frankenstein’s monster, with entirely the sutures.” Most of the pieces have been repaired — “We’ve torn almost every piece in moiety at least once,” well-known Chiarelli — and their paint frequently touched up.

The greatest number famous set piece, Act 1’s rapidly growing Christmas tree, is holding up nicely — though it’s not quite 25 years olden. “The first tree, it was just absolutely awful,” said Chiarelli, who was with PNB for the “Nutcracker” premiere. “It was dangerous. We hurt a bunch of people with it — not dancers, but stagehands. We were never quite sure it was going to get offstage in time.”

Created by Boeing, the tree was rebuilt very early in the “Nutcracker” run and still works like a charm. “It’sitting made out of the same material that you would make any airplane fuselage out of,” said Chiarelli. “It’s probably the closest event to indestructible landscape I’ve ever seen.”

Newly rebuilt from scratch last year was the Mouse King, the 27-foot puppet that dominates the Act 1 fight scene. “He works pretty hard; he gets chance by everything,” declared Chiarelli. The marionette is known backstage as Johnny Rat, after an unexpected gnawer lodger in PNB’s former scene-storage facility. Also newly come in recent years is the mouse scrim — the transparent drop cloth from one side which Clara peeks during her Act 1 nightmare.

Chiarelli said PNB is working on a three-year program to replace worn-out set pieces, particularly the two biggest backdrops: the snow forest and the Act 2 seraglio. “The seraglio send down got ripped a married pair of years ago, and if you look truly closely you can see the seam,” he said.

In 1983, Chiarelli aforesaid, the entire set was built toward on the point $275,000. “You couldn’face to face replace it today for three million.”

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725

or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com