American Ballet Theatre opens Alexei Ratmansky’s The Nutcracker at Segerstrom Center for the Arts this week, marking ten years of Nutcracker success for ABT, the choreographer, and the venue. Under artistic director Susan Jaffe, ABT is enjoying its stature as the venue’s official ballet company, further establishing SoCal as its second home outside of New York. Once again, the Pacific Symphony provides live music at all performances.
With 14 performances from December 11 to 21, 2025, there is much good news and just a bit of cautionary news regarding announced casting.
On the good news side, the climatic, beautiful, but fiendishly difficult, pas de deux offers an impressive lineup. Choose from established stars like Isabella Boylston, James Whiteside, Christine Shevchenko, Catherine Hurlin, Herman Cornejo, Hee Seo, Cory Stearns, and Joo Wan Ahn; or look for attention-demanding dancers Chloe Misseldine, SunMi Park, Calvin Royal III, Skylar Brandt, and Daniel Camargo; or catch the debuts of Joseph Markey, Jarod Curley, Michael de la Nuez, Léa Fleytoux, and Jake Roxander.
The cautionary news? Even with 14 shows, only a few from that list dance two shows, many dance only one. Check the announced casting for favorites. (See announced casting below)
American Ballet Theatre, “The Nutcracker” Grande Pas de Deux – Photo by Cheryl Mann.
The pas de deux reflects Ratmansky’s distinctive approach when creating this Nutcracker. Traditionally the story moves from a Christmas party where a young girl, Clara (sometimes Marie) receives a Nutcracker who is an enchanted prince and, after battling mice and encountering a snowstorm, the two arrive in an enchanted world where they are entertained by various dances before the pas de deux. Aside from tinkering with the plot, a perennial conundrum for choreographers is whether to cast children who are not yet professional level ballet dancers as Clara and the Nutcracker or instead to cast accomplished adult dancers who can pass as younger when surrounded by actual children in the party scene.
American Ballet Theatre – “The Nutcracker” – Photo by Cheryl Mann.
Known for approaching classical story ballets with both research and thought, Ratmansky opted to change the rules in a way few others have.
In an interview at the Guggenheim Museum just before the 2010 premiere at Brooklyn Academy of Music, Ratmansky was asked about his vision for the Nutcracker. The choreographer admitted he had concerns that most of the music was too familiar for an audience to respond spontaneously, except for the music for the pas de deux.
Alexander Ratmansky in rehearsal – Photo courtesy of the artists.
“You feel like you hear it for the first time, because it does grab your heart. In the original production, the pas de deux was danced by the Sugar Plum Fairy, but how could the pas de deux in the climax of the story not be done by the essential characters? The kids will be played by kids for the whole ballet, and in the pas de deux, they just imagine themselves to be adults. When the pas de deux happens, we do hear the fear of losing the most beautiful dream and that this dream will never come true. This is the score. This is in the Tchaikovsky score,” Ratmansky told the interviewer.
This approach also holds out the promise for ballet students cast as Clara and the Nutcracker that in the future, they might become the adult Clara and Nutcracker dancing the pas de deux for real. That promise came true for Catherine Hurlin, who danced Clara in the ballet’s 2010 premiere and now, as an ABT principal, dances the pas de deux.
If that pas de deux is now a dream of Clara and the Nutcracker, Ratmansky has not forgotten about the Sugar Plum Fairy who usually presides over the second act and introduces the variations.
American Ballet Theatre – Misty Copeland as Clara in “The Nutcracker” – Photo by Doug Gifford.
Ratmansky shifts the mistress of ceremony duties to a non-dancing, green turbaned figure, someone akin to the court Master of Ceremonies in Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty. Perhaps because of his stated concerns about their familiarity, he has given the dances that comprise the ubiquitous Nutcracker Suite subtle and not so subtle changes, many reflecting his reputation for humor. In the Waltz of the Flowers, he introduced a small swarm of bees, male dancers that allow for partnering among the flowers. On a darker note, in the snow scene that ends the first act, Ratmansky who is known for his musicality, found a fury in Tchaikovsky’s score that takes the usual snow globe flurry into a threatening storm that requires rescue.
Ratmansky’s innovations are hardly the first. From its start, The Nutcracker ballet has been a creature of change. The original 1892 The Nutcracker choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, took the title from the E.T.A. Hoffman story, but the ballet plot strayed so far from the original source the ballet’s credits should read “inspired by.” Choreographers from Mark Morris, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Rudolf Nureyev and L.A.’s own Debbie Allen, have exercised their own artistic license. In that context, the important thing when it debuted in 2010 was whether Ratmansky’s changes made sense in the way he has chosen to tell the story.
Former New York Times dance reviewer Alastair Macaulay, for one, applauded. “Ratmansky is like a throwback. He has gone back into ideas of characterization and of motivation for dances in a way unlike any other important choreographer today. To see how it engages dancers and audiences alike, he’s not like anybody else today. That is why it’s really, really singular.”
American Ballet Theatre’s Waltz of the Flowers – “The Nutcracker” – Photo by Gene Schiavone.
Ratmansky had been thinking about what became the ABT Nutcracker for almost a decade. In her Ratmansky biography, The Boy from Kyiv, Marina Harss describes two prior, partial productions that informed this ABT production. In 2000, the Mariinsky Ballet paired Ratmansky with the famous Russian artist Mihail Chemiakin whose dark ideas for set design and concept conflicted with Ratmansky’s lighter and musically informed dances. Much, but not all of the choreography was finished when the artist had Ratmansky replaced by Kirill Simonov. Two years later, the Royal Danish Ballet, where Ratmansky danced and choreographed, recruited Ratmansky to complete an unfinished Nutcracker after the choreographer abruptly departed. While the ABT The Nutcracker may not have been Ratmansky’s first rodeo, his ABT Nutcracker was the first he finished and completely his own with an artistic team that included lighting by the celebrated Jennifer Tipton along with scenery and costumes by Richard Hudson who won a Tony Award for The Lion King.
Katrina Carney (Clara) and Carson Triplett (Nutcracker Boy) in Alexei Ratmansky’s “The Nutcracker” – Photo by Marty Sohl.
In 2015, ABT brought its new Nutcracker to Segerstrom as part of its expanded California presence including the growth of the American Ballet Theatre William J. Gillespie School of Dance and ABT’s designation as the venue’s official dance company. While it opened successfully, its ten year run has not been continuous. Shortly after the December 2019 performances, the Covid-19 pandemic shuttered theaters and scotched scheduled 2020 performances. Instead, ABT went viral. In a video, ABT’s stage manager gave a backstage perspective with film from the 2019 opening The Nutcracker performances at Segerstrom starting with the crew prepping the stage, through onstage company class, rehearsal, costuming (including a battalion of stage hands on a catwalk lowering the enormous skirt onto Mother Ginger before the kids scampered into their spots under the skirt), performance moments, and the curtain call. View the video at: Dec. 2020-backstage what would have been a second 2020 video, something of a viral holiday card, presented principal dancers Isabella Boylston and James Whiteside performing that Ratmansky’s pas de deux in what looks like a church decked with Christmas trees and snow. Even in that somewhat constricted setting, the dancing conveys the beauty and the difficulty, but always in service to the emotion in the music. The video is still viewable at: pas de deux n2020, and this visit, Boylston and Whiteside are paired again for opening night.
How much is this pas de deux a badge of honor? One indication is the number of ABT dancers, many scheduled the next two weeks, who have posted videos ranging from rehearsal to their debut in it. These include SunMi Park, Skylar Brandt debut, Aran Bell in variation, and Christine Shevchenko. The videos offer a chance to sample different dancers and to get to better know the company members, even if one can’t see all the shows.
American Ballet Theatre – The Nutcracker Finale – Photo by Cheryl Mann.
Announced casting (always subject to change)
Thur., Dec. 11, 7 pm – Isabella Boylston & James Whiteside
Fri, Dec. 12, 7 pm – Catherine Hurlin & Joseph Markey*
Sat Mat, Dec. 13, 2 pm – Chloe Misseldine & Jarod Curley*
Sat., Dec. 13, 7 pm – Hee Seo & Cory Stearns
Sun., Dec. 14, 11:30 am – SunMi Park & Calvin Royal III
Sun., Dec. 14, 5:30 pm – Christine Shevchenko & Michael de la Nuez*
Tues., Dec. 16, 7 pm – Skylar Brandt & Herman Cornejo
Wed., Dec. 17, 7 pm – Christine Shevchenko & Michael de la Nuez
Thur., Dec. 18, 7 pm – Léa Fleytoux* & Jake Roxander*
Fri., Dec. 19, 7 pm – Hee Seo & Joo Wan Ahn
Sat., Dec. 20, 2 pm – Skylar Brandt & Herman Cornejo
Sat., Dec. 20, 7 pm – SunMi Park & Daniel Camargo
Sun., Dec. 21, 11:30 am – Catherine Hurlin & Joseph Markey
Sun., Dec. 21, 4:30 pm – Léa Fleytoux & Jake Roxander
Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Dr., Costa Mesa; Thurs.-Fri., Dec. 11-12 & 18-19, 7 pm, Sat. Dec. 13 & 20, 2 & 7 pm, Sun., Dec. 14, 11:30 & 5:30 pm, Tues.-Wed., Dec. 16-17, 7 pm, Sun., Dec. 21, 11:30 am & 4:30 pm, $32.77-$282.50. American Ballet Theatre.
Written by Ann Haskins for LA Dance Chronicle.
Featured image: American Ballet Theatre – The Nutcracker – Photo by Cheryl Mann.
