Long before the aroma of roast turkey tantalizes our taste buds, Nutcrackers across the world begin flexing their jaws for the holiday season. As countless holiday productions can attest, there’s more than one way to crack a nut.
“The Nutcracker” dominates Chicago holiday programming, along with “A Christmas Carol,” and “The Messiah,” giving a decidedly Christmasy emphasis to audience options. While The Nutcracker Ballet, based on the tale by E.T.A. Hoffmann, is the hallmark spectacle and prime audience draw of the year for many professional dance companies and countless ballet schools, Chicago boasts at least two notable holiday alternatives.
“Tidings of Tap” (December 12-14, UIC Theatre) is Chicago Tap Theatre’s answer to Christmas, Chanukah, and Winter. “It recognizes and honors everyone’s traditions,” says company director Mark Yonally. This year Rich Ashworth brings two new pieces to the line-up of family-friendly tap numbers. His “Twelve Days of Christmas” features a comedic look at the holiday mania, and his “Bohemian Tapsody” pairs hot footwork with the popular Queen tune.
Joel Hall Dancers’ “Nuts and Bolts” (November 29-30, Ruth Page Center) returns for another season of fun in the jazz idiom. Hall calls his multi-cultural offering “The Un-Nutcracker,” with racially, culturally, and sexually diverse dancers in a piece that is built around Duke Ellington’s riff on Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker score, with additional music by a mix of House Music. In the traditional “Nutcracker,” Act I is mostly mime, where “Nuts and Bolts” is more dance right from the start. Hall hopes “Nuts and Bolts’” will “bring people of all ages who wouldn’t normally be drawn to dance.”
Despite its Christmas-specific setting in Act I, “The Nutcracker’s” message is undeniably universal. It’s got everything a ballet company marketing director could want in a holiday show--a fairy tale story with colorful characters and plenty of magic, scenic spectacle, dazzling costumes, a built-in talent show for virtuoso dancing, and an unapologetic excuse to parade dozens of adorable children out on stage.
In 1987, Robert Joffrey held open auditions in New York for all the children’s roles he intended to create for his new, distinctively American take on “The Nutcracker.” Children of all ages showed up. One was in a wheel chair. Joffrey was so moved by the courage and determination of this child that he decided to create a role in the Act I party scene for a disabled child, a tradition that continues to this day in The Joffrey Ballet’s “Nutcracker,” (December 5-28, Auditorium Theater).
E.T.A.Hoffmann’s original story portrayed Drosselmeyer as a very dark and scary character, but he has evolved into a capricious avuncular fellow. “I love this role!” says Joffrey dancer Matthew Adamczyk, who describes Drosselmeyer as loving but also mysterious. He admires Robert Joffrey’s attention to detail that creates through-lines in the story, such as the 1850’s-era toys of Act I replicated exactly in life-size versions in Act II. But most of all, he loves interacting with the children, especially with a child whose disability would normally exclude him from such an opportunity. At one point, Drosselmeyer sprinkles fairy dust over the children. “For me to be able to play Drosselmeyer and have this interaction with this child; we’re making dreams come true!”
Joffrey Ballet’s April Daly, a ballerina’s ballerina, plays the roles of Snow Queen, Sugar Plum Fairy, and Pansy (Waltz of the Flowers). “I love Nutcracker,” she says, “because it’s such a great opportunity for the company to dance so many different roles.” For Daly, “Nutcracker” embodies the essence of the holiday season with the traditions of family and friends coming together. Her very first Nutcracker was at the age of eleven in her home town of Rockford, where she played a Polichinelle with The Rockford Dance Company. She has returned as guest artist to dance the Sugar Plum Fairy. Snow Queen is her favorite Nutcracker role, she says, citing the Joffrey version’s parallel casting of Mother and Father Stallbaum of Act I as the Snow Queen and King of Act II. “The music for Snow is so powerful and the mood so magical. Doing 40-some performances, you have to keep the magic alive!”
“Candy Cane is devilishly tricky,” says Ballet Chicago artistic director Daniel Duell of his 15 years dancing in George Balanchine’s “Nutcracker” for New York City Ballet. Duell and his wife, Patricia Blair, have choreographed Ballet Chicago’s “Nutcracker,” (December 13-21, Athenaeum Theatre), with Balanchine’s Act II pas de deux, for which they received permission from the Balanchine Trust. “Dancing the Cavalier is the lexicon of partnering,” says Duell, who was coached in the part by Balanchine himself. “He spent a lot of time teaching each and every step, with very specific goals for partnering.” With Balanchine, “the man is always dancing; the way he moves his hands on and off the ballerina’s body. You don’t see the wind-up or the preparation for a turn or lift.” Ballet Chicago’s “Nutcracker” features 150 cast members from pre-school through pre-professional. The production, with a running time of 1 hour and 50 minutes, also features company alum Ted Seymour of the Suzanne Farell Ballet as the Cavalier, and Joshua Ishmon, of Deeply Rooted Dance Theatre as Drosselmeyer.
The Ruth Page Civic Ballet carries on the tradition of Page's Nutcracker, which played for 31 years and was sponsored by Chicago Tribune Charities. “We had to know every part,” says Dolores Long, who stages the production, along with Birute Barodicaite and Victor Alexander of the Ruth Page School and Center for the Performing Arts. Long danced The Sugar Plum Fairy, Snow, and the Dancing Doll, but could have jumped in to play Arabian or Marzipan if needed. “Ruth didn’t let you sit around! That way, if anyone got sick or injured, there was always someone to cover the part.” Long loves this production, because “it’s very classical. Ruth put children in as many of the dances as she possibly could, not only in Act I, but in the variations of Act II as well.” Page called her production, “an affectionate and good old fashioned Christmas present to the children of Chicago and their parents and friends.” A new twist to the Civic’s production is the addition of a first act script, by U of I theater professor Bill Raffeld, with the characters of Clara, Fritz, Drosselmeyer (played by Randy Newsom), the nephew, and parents taking speaking roles. “For people who aren’t dance aficionados, it really helps!”
Hyde Park School of Dance director August Tye’s favorite “Nutcracker” role is Spanish, “But I never got to dance it!” She did get to dance many other roles, including the Sugar Plum Fairy and Snow, and uses her own experience as an example for her students, who all want to be Clara. “You’re lucky to get a role in “The Nutcracker,” she tells them. Not all dance students who audition for Nutcracker productions are so fortunate. At Hyde Park School of Dance, there are Nutcracker auditions, but everyone gets a part. Parent volunteers fuel the engine of HPSD’s “Nutcracker” (December 12-14, Mandel Hall), which features145 children and adults. “The community is what makes us unique,” Tye says of her volunteers. “It comes together as sheer effort and sheer love.” This year, parent volunteer Peter Gotsch plays Drosselmeyer with a decidedly “steam punk feeling.” With Gotsch’s wife playing the wife of Mayor Stallbaum, and lots of flirty winks going on between Drosselmeyer and Mrs. Stallbaum, there’s material for an on-stage gossip column, too. Local celebrities typically take some of the character roles. This year Hyde Park Bank president Mike McGarry will play the role of Mother Ginger, with other cameos TBA. A brand new growing tree was designed and built by one of the dads, who is an engineer, and his wife, a professional artist, designed and painted the sets.
Salt Creek Ballet’s “Nutcracker” (November 29-30, Hinsdale Central Auditorium; Dec. 6, Governor’s State University; Dec. 13-14, North Shore Center for the Performing Arts) boasts exciting new sets and costumes by designers formerly from the Leningrad Kirov Ballet. Company directors Sergey Kozadayev and Zhanna Dubrovskaya , graduates of Russia’s Vaganova School, have choreographed this production, now in its 30th anniversary season. 100 dancers from ages 8-18 will join professional guest artists in a traditional version that pays allegiance to the concept and style of Lev Ivanov’s original ballet. “Everything is already in the Tchaikovsky score as stage directions,” says Kozadayev, “so I don’t want to ignore tradition.” Kozadayev notes that the Balanchine version was very much influenced by Ivanov’s. One of the delights of this production for Kozadayev is the children. “They are honest. They are great pretenders, and they cannot lie on stage.”
Dancenter North continues its Nutcracker tradition under the leadership of new company director Karen Landrian, but “It’s every bit Sherry Lindell’s production!” she says, referring to the recently retired artistic director and choreographer. “Why meddle with a good thing?” Guest artists, including River North’s Hank Hunter as the Nutcracker Prince and Pablo Sanchez of the Atlanta Ballet as the Cavalier and Snow Prince, complement the cast, comprised of 83 student dancers, children through pre-professionals. (December 6-7, Libertyville High School; December 13, Genessee Theater, Waukegan)
Lynn Colburn Shapiro, Editor