- Hello, I'm Beth Macmillan, and welcome to "ARTEFFECTS".

Over the years, many people around the world have fallen in love with the fantasy novel, "The Last Unicorn".

Rosine Bena of Sierra Nevada Ballet is one of those fans.

The novel inspired Rosine to create an original ballet based on "The Last Unicorn".

It debuted in 1989, and was so well received, that it performed again in 1991, and now, has returned to the stage decades later in Reno, Nevada.

In this segment, we learn what i to make this ballet happen once and what it means to those who are bringing it back to life.

(bright classical music) - And it's my pleasure to welcom you to "The Last Unicorn".

It's gonna be great.

(audience applauding) "The Last Unicorn" is a full length story ballet based on the book by Peter S. Be I read the book in the early '80 and I really loved it, and I had never done, at that po an original full-length story ba but I had this passion for this and my daughter, who was then re said, you know, "Why don't you do a ballet?"

And so, I decided to try my first full-length original story ballet based on t but it was a long journey, because it took me three years t I had to start out by getting the permission from Peter Beagle.

- I'm Peter S. Beagle, I'm the author of "The Last Unicorn".

- And he was wonderful.

He was very enthusiastic about doing the ballet.

That was an easy part.

I'm so honored that through all these years, I'm the only choreographer that he's authorized to do a ballet based on his work which makes me so, so happy.

- I remember her, I can't believe it's been that long.

She came to talk to me.

I can remember we went to a coff and we talked for a long time about what she wanted to do.

It's so completely out of my han so utterly out of my hands, that all I can do is lean back and enjoy it.

- And now, without further ado, it's my pleasure to present to you after 34 years, "The Last Unicorn".

(audience cheering) (lively classical music) - Basically, it's a fairytale.

It was always meant to be.

It's a fairytale about an immort who comes to believe that she is the last of her kind.

- [Rosine] And so she asks all the other animals, and all the other animals say they've never seen a unicorn.

- But she has to leave them to f if there are other unicorns in t and she does find that out, and she finds that in certain wa more than she wants to know.

- She meets the butterfly, and the butterfly tells her, and they were captured by the evil King Haggard and his servant, The Red Bull, and they've all been put in the They're prisoners there, and they can't get out of the sea, and so, the unicorn goes on a jo to find those other unicorns, and on the way, she meets some incredible characters, like Schmendrick the Magician, she meets the wonderful Molly Grue, who is a servant, and has always waited her life to meet a unicorn, and those are some of the main characters in the story.

When the unicorn goes on the jou the magician turns her into a wo and then she falls in love with Prince Lir, and then he turns her back into and I think that's the saddest part, from anybody watching, is that she loves this prince, but she can't be with him, because she basically is a unico It's a beautiful story, 'cause it's not only for children, and there's a lot of incredible I really identified with the character of Molly Grue.

Molly Grue says, when she finally meets the unicorn, "I've waited my whole life, "and you come to me now when I'm like this," and at the time I did the ballet I was retiring from the stage, I was going to retire from the s and I was thinking the same thin and for ballet dancers, you know, your career is short.

I was facing that, and that's ho I felt like, you know, you come when I'm like this.

It was pretty magical, because my daughter, in the original ballet in 1989, and she was the bunny rabbit, and now, she's grown into a professional dancer, and she played Molly Grue, and that made me very happy, because that was my favorite cha And Peter, when he saw her performance as Molly Grue, he said it brought tears to his and that made me feel so good.

(bright classical music) I recreated the ballet for many My parents were both ballet danc and my father, he was a ballet d and then he turned into a set de and he created all the original and my mother, at the time, directed the ballet.

It was a family kind of love thi I just felt like it was such a special creation, and I wanted to bring it back, even though both of them are gon and I thought, someday, you know I wanna see that ballet before I leave this earth.

I wanna see it again on the stag My father's sets were found in a in San Mateo, California.

For 34 years, they were in the w and we managed to get the sets and restore them.

I have to say, when I saw those sets go up, it was like wow, you know?

It was just like going back in t - I have the same respect for da that I have for actors, because they're out there using all your skill, everything you've learned, everything you've screwed up, everything you know that you'd like to do one more time.

Me, it's the same, very much the They're doing it for an audience that was right there, right there in front of you, and I'm doing it for an audience I may never see.

- Yeah, one of the things that Peter said in the original, which I thought was really cute, King Haggard went, he looks at Lady Amalthea, who is the unicorn turned into a he says he can see her.

He can see that she's a unicorn through her eyes.

Well, showing that in ballet was and so what I did was I had King Haggard dance with the Lady Amalthea, and then I had somebody as a unicorn going back and forth, and one of the things that Peter said when he first saw it, he said, "How did you, how did you do that?

"What made you do that?"

And I said, "You did.

"Your words, I did in ballet," and he thought that was...

He said, "That's genius," and I thought, well, not really, because, you know, I think in ballet terms, and he thinks in words, but it's the same kind of thing.

- In any case, I honor the chore just because there she is with her own work out there, and she's worked on it so hard for so long.

There's nothing I can do possibly but applaud.

We're in the same business.

We speak the same language.

- Because it was my first original story ballet, I wondered if I would like it ag because I remember it as being this incredible, magical thing, and I wondered if it would be how it would be received, and if it would be as good to me after all these years, but it was, it was, I loved it, and the audiences were amazing.

You always, as an artist, always well, maybe I think this is good but does anybody else gonna think this is good?

And that was great.

It was pretty amazing when the curtain came down to hear the screaming of people.

I mean, they just screamed for j and I thought that was, that really, you know, that was pretty moving to me.

(audience applauding) - [Announcer] Funding for "ARTEFFECTS" is made possible by Sandy Raffealli with Bill Pearce Motors, (lively music) Meg and Dillard Myers, in memory of Sue McDowell, The Carol Franc Buck Foundation, and by the annual contributions of PBS Reno members.

(bright rhythmic music)