A Radio City Rockette describes her 14 years performing in ‘Christmas Spectacular’

It’s jingle belle time

Caldwell, New Jersey’s Megan Levinson. Radio City Music Hall Rockette 14 years.

“Mom put me into dancing class when I was 3. Yearly we’d see the ‘Christmas Spectacular.’ Age 11, Mom got me my first pointe shoes and I was cast to dance with teddy bears in the Nutcracker scene. Rockettes became part of my soul.

“Rockettes must re-audition yearly, be at least 18, between 5-foot-5 and 5-foot-10 ¹/₂. Proficient in jazz, ballet, tap. Technical, difficult, rehearse six hours a day, hard performance schedule — 17 shows a week, plus specials like tree lighting and Thanksgiving. Basically dancing all day. Sometimes a four-hour rehearsal, plus three shows.

“You get tired, but on four show days we keep each other up backstage playing fun games, like chestnut. Our dance captain prints them out on pieces of paper, hides them in different places backstage and between scenes we find them while changing backstage.

“5-foot-7, I stand usually three to the end. Shorter ladies on the end, tallest in the center. Things happen, like when my shoe buckle, tight on your feet, broke. But don’t let mistakes show. Keep going. When that number’s finished run offstage, get it fixed, then back for the next number like nothing ever happened.

“We get massages. Icing. Athletic trainings. I do a roll-out machine before I go to bed. Important to take care of your body and feel well-balanced.”

One more Kiss?

AS 2024 looms Gene Simmons just wrapped the final tour of his band Kiss because “we’re going to go out on top.”

2022, he told me: “This is my last tour. I can’t sit in a chair picking a guitar like blues musicians. Can’t stay on the stage too long. Better get off while the getting’s good. Physicality makes this my last tour.”

Age mid-70, carrying 40 pounds of armor and 7-inch platform shoes, watch for an announcement — like Streisand’s dozen farewell bye-byes — of a next coming tour.

Golightly, but now

MANNERS, dress code, genteel living are kaput but Schrafft’s — circa 1861 — is returning after 40 years. First restaurant — 55 places — to serve women without gents but with booze, first with air-conditioning, first with red, white and blue coloring to match the ’64 World’s Fair. It fed all — from Marilyn M, Jackie O, F. Sinatra, even Audrey Hepburn, whose opening “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” scene was in Schrafft’s.

Sundays, pop-up for now: It will be on Fifth, between 56th and 57th. Its president James Byrne says it’ll even do you hot coffee, English tea, eggnogs, cider with cinnamon and hot chocolate. Plus schnapps.

Tide of tyrants

QUESTION: If abandoning Ukraine, will that encourage China to go after Taiwan, North Korea to go against South Korea again, and Iran to continue through proxies to dominate the Mideast?

Dead lines

FROM reader Bunny Abraham: “Two vultures board an airplane. Each carried two dead raccoons. Stewardess: “Sorry. Only one carrion allowed per passenger.”

SANTA’S coming. Even bad people are being good.

One couple’s trying to be so sweet and nice that he even remembered the first words she said to him on their first night together. Cozying up she whispered: “You sure you’re not a cop?”

Definitely only in New York, kids, only in New York.