It was not until three o’clock one morning several weeks later that we all managed to get together at one time and place to have a conference on repertoire. The following day I saw another performance at the Wells, and was a bit distressed. It was clear to me that it was going to be necessary to increase the size of the company still further, and also to be more selective in the choice and arrangement of the repertoire. There followed a period of intense preparation on the part of the entire organization, with all of its attendant helter-skelter, and with day and night rehearsals. Meanwhile, I discussed and arranged for the production of a two-act production or version of _The Nutcracker_. The opening scene of this Tchaikowsky classic has always bothered me, chiefly because I felt it was dull and felt that, during its course, nothing really happened. There is, if the reader remembers, a rather banal Christmas party at which little Clara receives a nutcracker as a present, goes to bed without it, comes downstairs to retrieve it, and is forthwith transported to fairyland. I felt we would be better off to start with fairyland, and to omit the trying prologue. Moreover, I felt certain the inclusion of the work in this form would give added weight to the repertoire for the North American tour, since _The Nutcracker_ and Tchaikowsky are always well-liked and popular, as the box-office returns have proven. On this visit I spent three weeks in London, flying back to New York only to return to London three weeks later, to watch the company and to do what I could to speed up the preparations so that the company might be ready for the Canadian opening of the tour, the date of which was coming closer and closer with that inevitability such matters display. The Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet and its entire organization showed really tremendous energy and application, and did everything possible to prepare themselves to follow the great American success of their sister company, something that was, admittedly, a very difficult thing to do. Just before the company’s departure for the North American continent, it gave a four-week “American Festival Season” at Sadler’s Wells, consisting of the entire repertoire to be seen on this side of the Atlantic. This season included another Cranko work I have not before mentioned. It is _Harlequin in April_, a ballet commissioned for the Festival of Britain by the Arts Council. While I cannot say that it is the sort of piece that appeals to audiences by reason of its clarity, there is no gainsaying that it is a major creation and a greatly to be commended experiment, and, withal, a successful one. The choreographic work of John Cranko, in collaboration with the composer, Richard Arnell, and the artist-designer, John Piper, it was that much desired thing in ballet: a genuine collaboration between those individuals responsible for each aspect of it.