<Meadows’s graduate Megan Crichton is touring the country in the Rockettes’ Christmas show.
From an early age, visions of being a Rockette danced in the head of Megan Crichton (’07). “I’ve been dancing since I was 2, and saw their Christmas show when I was very young,” she says. “I decided then that my goal was to be a Rockette.” Now she’s living the dream as she travels the country with the 76th “Radio City Christmas Spectacular.”
Crichton, who earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in dance performance from SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts and now lives in New York City, was cast for the legendary high-kicking, precision dance troupe in July. “The audition process is crazy,” she says. “There are three auditions per year – in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. About 500 dancers audition in each city. It’s a two-day process, and by the end, they keep 12 from each city.” Crichton made the final cut, but not all of the finalists are offered a place in the line; she had to wait almost two months before she officially became a Rockette.
Crichton and fiancé Garrett Haake, who now works for “NBC Nightly News.”
The dancers started working on their routines for the world-famous holiday extravaganza on September 9. “We’ve been rehearsing eight to 10 hours a day, six days a week since then,” she says. “All that energy you get from the audience during a live performance makes those long, hard days of rehearsal worthwhile.” The touring company hit the road in November for an 18-city tour in 30 trucks and 16 buses. The season will wind down with performances in Austin December 30-31 and close in Houston January 2-4. “My entire family lives in Austin and Houston, so everyone will get to see me.”
Back in New York, she’ll continue to take classes, perform with a small modern dance company and audition. Crichton and fiancé Garrett Haake (’07), an SMU journalism graduate who’s living his dream, too, as an associate producer for “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams,” will wed May 9 in Perkins Chapel. They’ll return from the honeymoon in time for her to try out for the 2009 Christmas show. “Even if you’ve been cast before, you have to audition again every year.”