Act 1

Alba wakes-up and stretches as only a dancer can do. She makes coffee and drinks it while dancing.

It’s raining, summer is ending and the streets of the big city are wet. Alba jumps the puddles beautifully going to work in theatre.

At the theatre, she hears someone talking about setting up The Nutcracker for Christmas. She is very happy, because she has never performed it and she has always dreamt of doing it.

At the rehearsals for the evening show, Alba has to do a very difficult dance move and their colleagues are afraid she’ll break her head. But Alba concentrates deeply and courageously does it masterfully.

Her colleagues use to exchange a few words at same point of the lesson, but Alba doesn’t. She is self-focused, tries and tries again the steps until they are perfect.

In the evening the show goes on stage and Alba is very successful. She is happy.

On the day of rest Alba goes to the park alone and then has lunch at the usual restaurant, always alone.

The theater director calls her and gives her a letter. This is a retirement letter.

Alba is astonished. She is only forty years old and her performances are still excellent.

But he points out that the main character of the nutcracker is a little girl and that made him decide.

Alba wanders the corridors, lost and in tears. When she sees her colleagues she runs away, finds a little door, walks down some steps, finds a room and hides.

This is quite a large room, with a high and little window and there is a cot and a closet.

Heart-broken and tired she lies down and falls asleep.

Act 2

- Because of that Alba discovers a stair that leads to the stage. When she walks up she turns younger. When she walks down the steps she turn forty again.
Because of that she is astonished and scared and has chills.
Because of that she looks for a blanket in the closet and discovers a little kitchen and a poetry about the magic steps.
Because of that she feels inspired and walks the magic steps again to dance on stage at night.

- Because of that Alfred, a retired backup dancer always in love with Alba and never declared, and some other retired dancers discover that Alba is living in the basement.

Because of that they move there bringing a lot of stuff and Alba feels invaded also because now she cannot avoid interaction.
Because of that her colleagues tell her what they think of her: she always kept them at a distance and always thought only of herself. Alfred finally declares.
Because of that Alba invite them to have rehearsals of The Nutcracker with her. But her colleagues are noisy, lazy, comic, aching and don’t collaborate much.

- Because of that Alba tells them about the magic stair and leads them to it in order to get them younger and perform with her on stage.
Because of that the theater’s director discovers them dancing and wants the young Alba to perform in The Nutcracker as prima ballerina with the theater ballet company.
Because of that Alba’s colleagues and Alfred think she has used them for her purpose to keep dancing, so they leave the theatre and the basement.
Because of that Alba feels deeply sad and lonely.
ACT 3
Until finally Alba goes out from the theatre under the snow still in summer clothes and desperately looks for Alfred and the others.
She finds them and tell them she wants to stay and dance with them. The stairs made her look younger, but they made her feeling accepted. She declares to Alfred.
All together they decide to take over a little theatre and to move to some apartments above.
They go on stage with “The Nutcracker”. Alba feels like a little girl at Christmas. They invite the Theatre’s Director to the show and tell him he will be welcome to join them when he retires!
And ever since then the retired dancers have a lot of fun and give dance lessons to people of all ages, elder too.
Now Alba knows she doesn’t have to be perfect to be happy.