If the kids performing in Ballet San Antonio’s seasonal production of The Nutcracker had their way, the holiday classic might be rebooted as Ratcracker!!
Such was the scenario drawn by an enthusiastic group of young performers resting backstage at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts after their first dress rehearsal prior to Friday’s opening night performance.
Asked what roles they’d most like to play, they reimagined the dream scene when toy soldiers come alive to battle cantankerous mice as a whole party of anarchic rats having the run of the stage.
But choreographers Haley Henderson Smith and Easton Smith can rest easy. Their traditional Nutcracker ballet will go on as scheduled Dec. 1-10 at the Tobin Center, with the well-beloved roles of Clara, the Nutcracker Prince, the Sugar Plum Fairy, Drosselmeyer, Mother Ginger and the Mouse Queen all filled and ready to enliven the holiday spirit of San Antonio.
Poise, discipline and a gleam in their eyes
Discipline, after all, is a key quality in the child performers who win roles in the yearly production. When Jude De Leon, Henry Lopez, Rose Overby, Tristan Voss, Emma Paini, Mya Carter and 130 other kids auditioned for Ballet San Antonio back in mid-August, each were among those who stood out for their poise. A total of 96 kids won roles for 2023.
The choreographers, along with Ballet San Antonio Artistic Director Sofiane Sylve and Michele Dement, associate director of the School of Ballet San Antonio, look for kids who can pay attention to instructions and who can quickly learn and perform sequences of movements.
The four longtime professionals know that when the stage lights go on and the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts auditorium is filled with capacity audiences, they need reliable kids who can overcome nerves to be fully present in the performance and project joy and enthusiasm from the first row to the rafters.
Among the many talented kids who audition, “you always look for those people who have that special gleam in their eyes,” Easton Smith said, seeking an undefined quality that can “carry through from stage to audience, 20 rows back.”
Part of the magic
The children’s roles have been part of the magic of The Nutcracker since its inception, from the 35 kid-specific roles of choreographer George Balanchine’s 1954 American adaptation to Tchaikovsky’s original 1892 production that incorporated students of the Imperial Ballet School of St. Petersburg.
Many ballet dancers gain their first onstage experience in Nutcracker children’s roles, as is the case with many who auditioned for Ballet San Antonio.
Twelve-year-old Henry Lopez auditioned for the first time and won the role of party boy. Rose Overby, also 12, played the roles of party girl and soldier last year and won those same roles again. Tristan Voss, 12, is in her third year and will join Overby in both roles. Emma Paini is in her fourth year playing party girl and soldier, and Jude De Leon is playing the role of Clara’s pesky brother Fritz for the third year in a row.
All are students of the School of Ballet San Antonio and said they’d one day like to become professional dancers.
“I enjoy dancing, it makes me feel very happy,” De Leon said. “Also, it just gives me a lot of confidence to do what some boys are afraid to actually do.”
All agreed that their hearts race when the voice of Haley Henderson Smith booms through her microphone with instructions exhorting the children to express the joys of the moment and interact with other characters on stage.
Several of those characters are played by their ballet teachers, and seeing them outside of the classroom, in full regalia and performing with incredible grace and athleticism so close onstage is inspiring.
“In class, they’re just our teachers,” Voss said. “But on stage, they’re dancing, and we’re dancing with these amazing dancers.”
Extended family
But the young performers said the most important facet of their experience is the camaraderie they feel after months of weekly rehearsals and the excitement of finally dressing in costume and taking the Tobin Center stage.
“Everyone on stage, we’re all like family. We’re all really close. So we all hang out like actual family,” Overby said.
And the actual offstage family members and friends get excited to see them perform, she said.
Ideally, that sense of family extends throughout the auditorium, said Mya Carter, a School of Ballet San Antonio student and party girl in this year’s production. Carter started at age 3 as a polichinelle in Mother Ginger’s tented skirt and has played a mouse in prior productions.
Carter, age 9, said it’s important that she and her fellow child performers bring enthusiasm and joy to each performance, in particular for audiences who are seeing The Nutcracker for the first time.
Carter’s mom Amber Carete is among several volunteers who help wrangle the dozens of kids involved in the production, many of whom perform several roles and require costume changes.
Carete said the benefits of her daughter’s participation in The Nutcracker go beyond making enduring friendships, feeling the excitement of performance and even advancing Carter in her nascent dancing career.
“I think it has given her phenomenal stage presence, competence, integrity,” Carete said of her third grade honor student. “It’s given her time management skills that I think it’s great to learn at such a young age. She’s able to handle rehearsals, school, her friends … and just it’s given her a boost of confidence that I just don’t think she would have had without it.”
Carter said she knows she’ll be sad when Ballet San Antonio finishes its 11-day run of The Nutcracker.
“I get very sad because I don’t want it to end and I just want it to be longer,” she said. But holiday magic still awaits. “I’m a little bit sad, but it’s okay. I still have Christmas.”
The Nutcracker opens Friday with a 7:30 p.m. performance, followed by a Saturday matinee and evening shows and a Sunday matinee. The schedule repeats Dec. 8-10. Tickets are available priced from $25 to $132. In between, Ballet San Antonio will perform a free sensory-friendly show Dec. 5 and three abbreviated student matinee performances Dec. 6-8.
Tickets for a special Nutcracker Sweets & Treats Party on Dec. 6 are also available, offering photos with Nutcracker characters, a live reading by Miss Anastasia and a backstage tour with the Mouse Queen.
