A battle between brave toys and marauding mice. An elegant Waltz of the Snowflakes. The dance of the Sugarplum Fairy that's just as sweet as any holiday dessert. For many Americans, watching these scenes is a holiday must — so much so that major ballet companies across the United States now depend on The Nutcracker to keep them going.
New York City Ballet puts on about 50 performances of The Nutcracker each year. Kathy Brown, executive director of the NYCB and the David H. Koch Theater, said, "The revenue that it brings in is about 45% of our total ticket revenue for the whole year. So it is enormously important to the business model."
That financial significance has grown even larger since the pandemic, as audiences have returned to live performances. According to Dance/USA, the service organization that advocates for and supports dance in the United States, large American dance companies (those whose annual budgets exceed $3 million) reported that their ticket revenue specifically for The Nutcracker has been zooming up. For these organizations, total ticket revenue for The Nutcracker between 2022 and 2024 rose from just over $57 million to well over $84 million. Attendance at The Nutcracker has also increased for these companies by 18%.
Costs have been rising precipitously as well, however. Budget lines like labor, electricity, the costs of sprucing up old costumes and stage sets — and even pointe shoes — have continued to grow. NYCB, for example, buys most of its pointe shoes from England, and tariffs have caused those shoe prices to skyrocket.
Moreover, The Nutcracker requires an enormous mobilization of forces, said Adam Sklute, the artistic director of Ballet West in Salt Lake City, Utah. For their three dozen or so Nutcracker performances, Ballet West uses 52 professional dancers, a live orchestra of about 50 musicians, at least 30 crew members, and then ... there are all the kids.
"We use upwards of 15 to 20 [performers] from our advanced level, students and trainees and such," Sklute said. "And then we use 75 smaller children in any given production. We alternate four different casts of those 75 kids. So that makes up 300 children." Of course, that also means a steady stream of ticket sales from proud family members and friends coming to see the tykes perform.
Sklute said that Nutcracker is an essential part of the community in his region: "We have families that have grown up performing in The Nutcracker and also coming to see it. This is a vital anchor to our company's repertoire." That's meaningful to Ballet West, which Sklute says has the largest education and outreach program of any U.S. ballet company. They reach over 165,000 community members each year, with outreach programs for people with special needs, incarcerated people, older adults, people with chemical dependencies and schoolchildren.
The trick, though, is getting Nutcracker fans to come back for other productions, said NYCB's Kathy Brown. They may not come back to see an evening of contemporary choreography, but maybe they can be lured back to see another Tchaikovsky classic like Swan Lake.
"We try all the time to, you know, to communicate with those folks and really try to invite them back," Brown said. "Because we know that they enjoyed a story ballet, we will try to invite them back for similar kinds of things."
Each winter, these dance companies have to strike a careful balance: They've got to keep visions of sugarplum fairies dancing in audience members' dreams … but not become so reliant on one ballet that they endanger their other work. It's enough to keep any dance company on its toes.
This story was edited for broadcast by Jennifer Vanasco. The audio was mixed by Chloee Weiner. The story was edited for digital by Ciera Crawford.
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