Megasize clock of cheese? Ready for little mice to steal away.

Monkey mask made? Beggar costume fitted? Mother Hubbard makeup applied? Check, check, check.

Welcome to what production manager Joy Steward calls "hell week" one final week of hard work that will end soon.

Every year, the Nutcracker producers give the cast and crew a pep talk during final rehearsals.

"We tell them that the slump is coming. We're going to work through that," said Ken Castner, the show's longtime producer. "All of a sudden it will be over and you guys will be wanting to do it another weekend."

Now in its 21st season, the Nutcracker Ballet's success can be attributed to a core group of producers, directors and choreographers who have been with the show since 1989. Chief among them are the Snow sisters, the daughters of Betty Snow: Steward, choreographer and artistic director Jill Berryman, and rehearsal mistress Jennifer "Jinx" Strelkauskas. That family tradition continues with the return to Homer of Breezy Berryman, Jill's daughter, also a rehearsal mistress as well as dancer and choreographer. There's a bigger extended family, though, with people who started out as backstage parents and have stayed on.

"There's a good number of us that got sucked into the production but haven't left, even though our children have moved on," Steward said.

This is the fifth year of the Nutcracker since the production split from sponsorship by the Homer Council on the Arts and became an independent production led by Berryman, Steward and coproducers Castner and Marianne Markelz.

Based on Tchaikovsky's ballet, the Homer Nutcracker has become known for its surprises and new twists. Who will be this year's Uncle Drosselmeyer? (Hint: this uncle's magic will be done.) What new country's music and dance appears at the magic Castle of Orth?

"Every year we do new things, new music, maybe a different country to visit," Jill Berryman said.

Berryman draws on the strengths of each year's cast to develop dances and their ideas. In the opening party sequence, adults resplendent in ball gowns and suits won't just dazzle the eyes they'll also be dancing. Kids who have picked up some circus acts inspired Berryman to include a clown troupe.

"It's always fun to incorporate kids' ideas into the production," she said. "These kids are busting to do some fun stuff."

After a previous generation of older boys graduated several years ago, this year has a new group of guys.

"We were on a new learning curve for some of the older guys," Berryman said. "OK, now you're a Russian, now you're a rat, now you have to be in the party scene."

The guys love it, she said.

"They like stomping around. It's fast and furious," Berryman said of scenes like the Russian Cossack dancing. "You get to lift some girls everything a high school boy wants to do."

Photographer: Michael Armstrong, Homer News Baggar Zane Wilkinson gets in character as a beggar at rehersal

She might have been speaking of her own daughter Breezy, who danced Clara in the first Nutcracker at age 12. After a career that took her to New York, where she got a bachelor of fine arts in dance from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, and touring with Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, Berryman has come back to Homer. She teaches dance with her mother and African dance at the Bay Club and also does massage therapy for Dr. James Heston. Breezy Berryman plays piano and violin, and is in the band Work in Progress.

"I did a big circle," Breezy Berryman said of coming back to Homer.

Berryman dances a gypsy piece in this year's Nutcracker and has choreographed that and several other acts. She also has been a rehearsal mistress with the two student principal dancers, Morgan Edminster and Rhoslyn Jennings.

"They're really eager to soak up whatever material I'm throwing at them," Berryman said. "They're really talented young ladies."

With her music background, Berryman admits she can be tough on her dancers.

"They get a little frustrated with me," she said. "I like my pieces to be coordinated with the music. Sometimes when they're off their counts, I say, 'Listen to the music.'"

As always, the show will go on and once again dazzle the estimated 2,800 who show up yearly. It's not just the production's Nutcracker it's Homer's Nutcracker, Castner said.

"The town has ownership of the production," he said. "How do we maximize that gift we have there? It's just great. That's what keeps me involved."

For photos of last year's Nutcracker and more information, visit its Web site at www.homernutcracker.org.

Michael Armstrong can be reached at michael.armstrong.@homernews.com.