Grab your sugarplums. "The Nutcracker" is in town.
For the eighth consecutive year, the Omaha Theater Company will present the traditional holiday ballet "The Nutcracker" at the Orpheum Theater, 409 S. 16th St. in Omaha. It will be running Thursday through Saturday.
Emily Huddleston, the administrator of the company, put the show together with the help of choreographer Robin Welch. The show is one of Omaha's greatest traditions, Huddleston said.
Huddleston and Welch have conspired to incorporate a personal Nebraska touch into the piece, further cementing its place in Omaha traditions and making the show unique.
The production is set in the 1920s and features favorites from the era, including Betty Boop, Charlie Chaplain and a huge teddy bear, representative of Teddy himself - President Roosevelt that is.
Rachel Vickrey plays the Sugarplum Fairy in this year's production. She has been involved in more than 25 productions of "The Nutcracker" in various roles. This is her eighth year with the Omaha Theater Company.
"This year's show is the 1920s version - different than most Nutcrackers," Vickrey said. "This one is about the era when the Orpheum was built, the big debut of the Orpheum."
The 1920s itself was a glamorous and exciting time, and the company has created this year's show with glamour and excitement in mind.
Welch designed new choreography for the Sugarplum Fairy and the Nutcracker Prince in an attempt to make this year's production different from others. Welch said the original choreography "was able to incorporate Omaha's history and blend it in with the traditional 'Nutcracker.' That's what makes our 'Nutcracker' different from others."
"It's important to have a few surprises to keep things fresh," Huddleston said.
The show features performers of all ages. The performers range from 6 to more than 60 years old.
"There are so many different ages," Huddleston said. "Possibly both the most challenging and rewarding part of putting it together is coordinating with all the children from the community and the professional dancers and the actors, getting them all together to pull the production together and make it look as a professional production should be."
For Vickrey, the most challenging aspect of this production has been "all the different parts in the second act that the girls do. There is a lot of changing that everyone does because people do more than one part."
The show has also been rewarding in many ways for Vickrey.
The Omaha Theater Company is the only professional ballet company in the region, Huddleston said. The company has 15 resident professional dancers that "come from all over North America to live and work in Omaha."
"One of the neat things about this group of professional dancers is that in the past three years, nobody has changed - we've been the same group," Vickrey said. "It has been really nice and great to work with the same group of dancers for three full years."
For Vickrey, teaching her students is also rewarding.
"You get to see your students year after year getting older and getting into bigger parts, and you become proud of them," she said.
"The excitement, beauty, athleticism - I think that's what makes 'The Nutcracker' such a good holiday tradition," Huddleston said.
