Sugar Plum Fairies, Inc.

Two Nutcrackers: One traditional, one cracked

By Joy Heller

In a richly decorated ballroom, merry adults gather to toast the holiday season while their impeccably-dressed children dart and swirl to the whoosh of rustling chiffon. This year, the holiday event on everybody’s lips is hosted by the gracious Stahlbaum family.

Held at the elegant Academy of Music, the party is reproduced 25 times each December as the opening scene to George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker, presented by the Pennsylvania Ballet.

Meanwhile, across town from the Stahlbaum’s, eight girls in pajamas wiggle their hips to Cyndi Lauper’s candied credo, “Girls just wanna have fun!” The slumber party is hosted by a perky blonde named Liberty Belle Anne, whose dreams of a holiday sweetheart swell in the Philly-Nutt-Crak-Up, performed by Contempra Dance Theatre that ran in mid-December at the Painted Bride Art Center.

Since its first production by the San Francisco Ballet in 1944, The Nutcracker has cornered the market for classical ballet, capturing the American imagination as a timeless holiday confection. Surpassing darker-themed European imports like Swan Lake and Romeo and Juliet in ticket sales, The Nutcracker has become a brand-name for family togetherness and childhood whimsy.
Artistic directors of ballet companies across the country rely on The Nutcracker and its unparalleled ticket sales to bankroll the rest of their seasons.

“You cannot go through the holidays without a Nutcracker,” said Gail Vartanian, artistic director of Contempra Dance Theatre, a small ensemble company based in Wayne, Pa.
Vartanian realized that The Nutcracker as a marketing brand extends well beyond its classical incarnation. This year she directed the fourth production of the Philly-Nutt-Crak-Up, a parody that turns familiar images upside down and replaces them with comic, Philadelphia-style references.

“The big, old classic traditions need to be nudged or kicked forward,” said Sean Whiteman, a Contempra dancer. “Productions like the Philly-Nutt-Crak-Up attract new and younger audiences. What is the average age of a subscriber to the Kimmel Center? Probably somewhere in the 50s.”

But it only takes a single glance at the Academy of Music’s gilded foyer, after an opening weekend performance of the Pennsylvania Ballet’s The Nutcracker, to realize that this production is all about the young ones --and also the young at heart.

“The kids are the actual stars of the show. The second act has the dancing,” said Brooke Honeyford, Public Relations Manager for the Pennsylvania Ballet.

After 20 years, the Pennsylvania Ballet’s The Nutcracker premiered with a shiny new look. The old production had become worn and dingy, Honeyford said. London-based Judanna Lynn designed 192 new costumes, and hand-painted scrims replaced the old wooden sets.

"The dancers had a busy fall, and getting fitted for Nutcracker costumes was something new and special,” Honeyford said.

Technically set in 1830s Germany, the sets combine a mix of architectural influences, including a federal-style building familiar to Philadelphia.

“It’s not historically precise,” Honeyford said. “But there’s a general Victorian aesthetic.”

* * *

On this particular afternoon, Honeyford, with her team of marketing staff, is at the center of the post-performance storm. The last swells of Tchaikovsky have receded, and adult audience members are exiting head down. Not in defeat or mourning, but craning to ask the litte faces attached to their sides, “Did you like it? Wasn’t it splendid?”

Honeyford is overseeing a book signing by children’s author Susan Jeffers, who has just written a picture book called The Nutcracker. Honeyford eyes the boutique table selling Nutcracker memorabilia, and watches as a dancer makes her way through the crowd, posing in a sequined pink tutu for pictures with beaming, awestricken children.

Upstairs, the Academy’s acoustics send the chatter of excited children flying about the stately balllroom, where a kid-topia has been imagined, complete with stations for dress-up, coloring, arts and crafts, and autographs.

Rebecca Azenberg sits behind the autograph table, smiling at the scene through extra long, glue-on performance eyelashes.

“Sure it’s repetitive and corny, but when you see these faces, it makes it worth it,” Azenberg says.

A member of the corps de ballet, Azenberg danced the role of Lead Marzipan, a second act variation, this morning. Lead Marzipan is one of the most technically difficult and least appreciated parts of the show. I always get nervous, Azenberg says.

A woman approaches, daughter in tow, and asks Azenberg, “Is that Martha Chamberlain?”
Chamberlain, an accomplished principal dancer in the company, has danced numerous Sugar Plum Fairies, and is reprising the lead role today.

Azenberg cranes her neck to glimpse the dancer in the pink tutu, who is lightly fingering a wand, smiling and ready for the cameras.

“I don’t think so. I just saw Martha backstage,” Azenberg says.

As the three o’clock curtain nears, Azenberg leaves her autograph post and returns backstage for a company warm-up. The smiling dancer remains in public—she is actually a model hired by the company to pose for shots during weekend performances.

Noise from the arriving crowd crescendos as red-jacketed ushers lead families to their seats.

The lights dim and the red velvet and gold leaf of the theater darken. The audiences hushes as the exuberant Tchaikovsky overture bursts forth from the orchestra pit.

Audience member Barry Cross, seated in the front row, brings his children to the production every year. “It’s becomes a family tradition. My son is an athlete, but I like to provide a contrast,” Cross says.

In the production, the child protagonist, Marie, defends her Nutcracker against an invading army of mice, and is escorted to the Land of Sweets by a regal, yet motherly, Sugar Plum Fairy. Lynn’s costumes dazzle in their intricacy and opulence, and the scrims create handsome family rooms and a pristine wintry wonderland.

The ripples of a harp signal the final performance of the show, a pas de deux danced by the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier, principal dancer James Ihde. In the role, Chamberlain has regal bearing down to a science, and her performance exudes stunning restraint without being emotionally removed. As the rhapsodic score rises, Chamberlain plunges into her partner’s arms. At the final triumphant note, the audience breaks into applause.

Backstage, Chamberlain has shed her tutu and unwound her dark hair from its tight chignon in minutes.

“I’ve learned to simplify my approach a lot. To enjoy myself, and remember who’s in the audience. Not to take it too seriously,” Chamberlain says.

Chamberlain was a member of the company when the last version of the Nutcracker premiered in 1987. Over the years, she has danced countless Nutcrackers with seven different partners.

“We counted my partners backstage today. The feeling of the pas de deux changes with your partner. This is the first time I danced with James because he’s tall and I’m so short. With James, I feel more ladylike,” Chamberlain says. “It’s a completely different kind of nerves with The Nutcracker. Maybe because you’ve danced it so long, there’s the challenge to keep it fresh.”

* * *

Companies like Contempra Dance can’t afford to dabble in a big Balanchine production, so they perform The Nutcracker tongue-in-cheek to draw in the holiday crowds.

“I was tired of Nutcrackers,” Vartanian said. “I wanted a complete alternative, something abstract, crazy, and totally fun.”

“We were called ‘deranged’ by Channel Six’s Gary Papa,” she adds, somewhat proudly.

Hours before curtain for the Philly-Nutt-Crak-Up, volunteer moms set up Contempra Dance sweatshirt displays and bag cookies in the reception area of the Painted Bride Theater. Dozens of kids in makeup and costume thread in and among the busy parents.

Diane Burton takes her young daughter, a Contempra Kisserita and Penn Cherub, to the Pennsylvania Ballet every December.

“The traditional Nutcracker is big and glamorous. This show is dynamic and more intimate, and you can really see the dancers,” Burton said.

“Get the kids out of the theater,” Vartanian says, and she faces her fifteen professional dancers, sprawled out and stretching onstage, to give production notes.

“Is that before or after Kung Fu?” Tim Zimnoch asks. Zimnoch is performing Contempra’s counter-role to the Nutcracker prince, a cheesesteak delivery guy turned Philadelphia superhero.

Curtain time nears and audience members pack the Painted Bride in fashionable coats and evening wear, looking ready for a night at the ballet. The doors to the 250-seat theater open and friends and relatives of dancers hurry in.

The recorded Tchaikovsky overture plays to an empty stage until the Sugar Plum Fairy enters, pretty in a pink tutu.

Suddenly, the Tchaikovsky is cut. The Sugar Plum Fairy, performed by Michelle Wurtz Jones, twists her face into a grimace, lifts up her pointe shoe, and mouths, “My foot hurts!” She puffs on an imaginary cigarette until the music morphs into a string of hip hop beats.

Grabbing a microphone, Wurtz Jones raps, “Some rats they’ll grow, scare you away. But a superhero will save the day. Who is he, only time will tell. And by the way, my name’s Michelle.”
The rapping, smoking Sugar Plum Fairy is one of the few tutu’d characters in the Philly-Nutt-Crak-Up. In Liberty Belle Anne’s bedroom, the mysterious Uncle Franklin Rosselmeyer reveals a set of dancing dolls that would surely throw the Victorian Stahlbaums for a loop. Performing as Princess Leia, one dancer flings a light saber to Star Wars, and a slinkily-dressed Barbie doll gestures manically to Aqua’s enduring pop song “Barbie Girl.”

Act Two opens with adults and children, laden with shopping bags, scurrying about the stage, which has become the King of Prussia Mall. Liberty Belle Anne searches the mall for her holiday superhero. Fortunately for her, it wouldn’t be a Nutcracker without a happy ending. The curtains close as Captain Philadelphia wheels Liberty Belle Anne offstage in a shopping cart, happily ever after.

After the show, dancers spill out into the lobby for a post-performance reception. Vartanian has arranged for catered food from Konak, a nearby Turkish restaurant.

“Sometimes the audience wonders if they’re allowed to laugh, after seeing the classical Nutcracker,” Wurtz Jones says. “But it’s like West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet, you can’t compare the two.”

“My hip hop was strictly unofficial,” says Whiteman, a classically trained ballet dancer who performed as the decidedly non-classical Snow King in the first act. “When I was in Boston Ballet we did 53 performances of The Nutcracker in one year. Alternative Nutcrackers are a necessary break, an artistic safety valve.”

* * *

Back on the Avenue of the Arts, Rebecca Azenberg is still in makeup in the noisy ballroom of the Academy of Music. As she signs programs for kids and chats with their parents, the clock is ticking to her second of 25 Nutcracker performances.

Does she dread the coming of Nutcracker season?

“The Nutcracker is an opportunity to be in the theater, and the theater is where I want to be,” Azenberg says.

Then she giggles and adds, “Our last performance, on New Year’s, is our chance to mess it up. Look for mice in the second act, and the orchestra might play something different.”