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OCTOBER 2013 -
SEXY X2
MAGAZINE -
11
ch more
gances — live animals! Dancing Santas!
Highly toned legs! — Ms. Haberman,
who last year became the show’s first
solo female director and choreographer,
endeavored to amp it up. She presided
over a team of nearly 300 people to create
a production meant to bridge the quaintly
hokey past and the multimedia future. The
show’s accouterments have doubled in
size; its sets, costumes and props filled 50
trailers.
Though staples like the toy-soldier routine
remain, more than half the numbers are
new, with modernized choreography and
high-tech backdrops. There are more
focused story lines with new young actors,
a rousing gospel finale, and — finally — a
curtain call. This year, for the first time,
the show will be broadcast on network
TV, on NBC on Dec. 1. Don Hewitt is the
special’s executive producer; the show is
one of his first since he retired from “60
Minutes” in 2004. (CBS passed on it.)
The “Spectacular” has always been a tour-
ist mecca — it attracts more than 1 million
people each season — and a cash cow. “A
lot of companies would’ve said, ‘It works,
it sells out, why do anything?’” said Jona-
than Hochwald, executive vice president
of productions for MSG Entertainment,