Westside Ballet is marking 53 years of staging The Nutcracker in Santa Monica, and this year's run brings a bona fide New York City Ballet star to the Eli and Edythe Broad Stage. The production runs from November 27 through December 6, with performances built around two different casts of principal dancers and live accompaniment by the Santa Monica College Symphony Orchestra.
According to Westside Ballet, New York City Ballet principal Tiler Peck returns to dance the Sugar Plum Fairy from November 27 through 29, with fellow NYCB principal Roman Mejia dancing opposite her as the Cavalier. For the back half of the run, from December 3 through 6, Brynlee Highway steps into the Sugar Plum Fairy role with Maté Szentes as her Cavalier. The company describes the production as a Los Angeles tradition stretching back to 1973.
The score isn't coming from a recording. Per the company's own announcement, the Santa Monica College Symphony Orchestra performs live for ten of the eleven public performances, giving the Tchaikovsky ballet live orchestral accompaniment, a rarity among regional ballet companies. Santa Monica College and Westside School of Ballet have paired up for the show in past seasons as well, with santamonicanext.org previously describing a run in which the SMC Nutcracker Symphony and SMC dancers joined Westside Ballet onstage.
Tea Service and Family Add-Ons
Beyond the main performances, Westside Ballet is again offering its Nutcracker Tea on November 28 and 29, which guests can book separately or bundle together with their ballet tickets. It's become something of a companion tradition to the stage show itself, giving families a way to extend the holiday outing beyond the theater.
As reported by the Santa Monica Mirror, Santa Monica College's Public Policy Institute and Westside School of Ballet are again teaming up to present live performances of the Tchaikovsky classic, with special shows set aside to introduce fifth graders to classical ballet and Tchaikovsky's music. SMC Public Policy Institute co-director and political science professor Dr. Richard Tahvildaran-Jesswein told the Mirror that the institute is proud of its partnership with the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, which allows every fifth-grade class in the district to take a field trip to the Broad Stage. “For many students, the performance is their first exposure to classical music and ballet,” he said.
A Cast Built on Choreography and Tradition
The production features the Westside Ballet company alongside SMC dancers, with Balanchine-inspired choreography anchoring the staging of the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Prince alongside traditional holiday staging elements that have defined the show for decades. Earlier seasons give a sense of scale: the Mirror notes the production's history of pairing SMC dancers with Westside Ballet, while a prior season reported by smdp.com featured 145 dancers ranging in age from 8 to 18, described at the time as the company's largest cast in its history.
Reporting on past seasons has not always agreed on the exact performance count. A dispatch from yovenice.com described an earlier run as eight performances, while smdp.com's account of that same stretch counted nine public performances, including an added 7 p.m. show. Yo Venice also reported that weekday matinees in past years were reserved specifically for fifth-grade classes in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, echoing the field-trip partnership Tahvildaran-Jesswein described to the Mirror.
Families hoping to coordinate school-related details for this year's fifth-grade performances can do so by emailing the contact address listed through the production's official channels. With Tiler Peck headlining the opening weekend and a packed slate of family-friendly add-ons through the second week of the run, Westside Ballet's latest Nutcracker is shaping up as one more chapter in a holiday tradition that's now spanned more than half a century on the Westside.
