Tape Dancers

In “The Few, the Proud, the Rockettes” (Dec. 6), Jennifer Fisher mentions all of the similarities of the West Coast version of the “Radio City Christmas Spectacular” to “the mother show in New York” (ice-skaters, dancing and singing chorus, Santa, elves, etc.).

But what is not like the New York production is the music. The show in New York has a 35-piece orchestra, while L.A. has a tape recorder. For shame!

SHELDON SANOV

Valley Village

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Critic Anna Kisselgoff may have said in 1978 that the secret of the Rockettes was their “lack of sex appeal,” but as a kid who practically grew up at the Radio City Music Hall (my mother, Dolores Pallet, worked there for over 30 years), I can tell you that memories of riding the elevator to Mom’s office on the fifth floor with occasional Rockettes for company and achingly watching them get off for their third-floor dressing rooms, remain embedded in my aged psyche.

Russell Markert knew very well what people liked and may have constructed the Rockettes’ routines with sexiness in small type. But lack of sexiness? No way.

RICHARD BRANDLON

Seal Beach

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Fisher seems to imply that this is the first appearance of the Rockettes on the West Coast. In December 1982, I attended a performance of the “Magnificent Christmas Spectacular” at the Shrine Auditorium featuring them. It ran there for about a month.

JOHN APOSTOLOU

Los Angeles