'Nutcrackers' For All

Megan Cancellieri turned 4 during the week of Danse Arts’ first-ever “The Nutcracker.” The young girl made her ballet debut as a polichinelle, or gingerbread girl, on the Southampton High School stage.

Now 24 years later, Ms. Cancellieri—who bought the Bridgehampton-based dance studio six years ago—has two reasons to celebrate. On Wednesday she turned 28. And this weekend, “The Nutcracker” production turns 25 on the very same stage where it began.

Ms. Cancellieri hasn’t missed a single performance.

“You have that moment,” she said with an emphatic snap of her fingers last week during dress rehearsal at her studio, “right after Thanksgiving where it’s like, ‘Oh, the show’s in two weeks.’ It’s stressful, it’s panicky and then it’s perfect and it’s great and the curtain opens and the show starts and everyone looks amazing and you’re like, ‘It works! Yay!’ It’s so exciting.”

Several other dance studios across the Hamptons are also gearing up for their respective “Nutcracker” productions this month, starting with the Hampton Ballet Theatre School staging this same weekend.

Hampton Ballet Theatre School and Danse Arts, which feature 50 to 75 dancers respectively, take a classical stab at the 19th century ballet. The ballet, set to the score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, tells the beloved tale of Clara, a young girl whose godfather, Herr Drosselmeyer, gives her a wooden nutcracker which comes to life and takes her on a magical journey to the Land of Sweets, ruled by the Sugar Plum Fairy, after they defeat the Mouse King.

“The music is so beautiful and it’s an imaginative story, the story of Clara,” Hampton Ballet Theatre Company director Sara Jo Strickland said during a telephone interview last week. “It’s just timeless. There’s a bit of fantasy to it and I think that kids can relate to that. I have kids in ‘The Nutcracker’ that are 3 and 4 years old. They start doing a little role and graduate. Every year it gets bigger and better until they, of course, reach Clara and, ultimately, reach the Sugar Plum Fairy.”

The Sugar Plum Fairy is the pinnacle role for any young ballerina, Ms. Cancellieri explained. This year, she offered it to two senior dancers in her company—16-year-old Julia Talasko and 20-year-old Cornelia O’Connor.

Both girls were shocked to be asked, they said, but immediately snatched up their first-time opportunity.

“It’s the main part. You have a partner, and that’s really exciting,” Ms. Talasko said at the studio last week, referring to the Cavalier, who will be danced by 28-year-old professional Leonard Linares. “And any ballerina wants it just because you’re the Sugar Plum. You’re a princess.”

However, the Sugar Plum Fairy—which is danced

en pointe

—is no joke. It’s the hardest role Ms. O’Connor has ever done, she said.

“It’s so physically demanding,” she said. “I was surprised I was doing it this year. I was, like, obsessed with it when I was younger. When I was younger, my living room was basically a dance studio. I would move all the furniture and dance.”

The same is true of many ballerinas, including Christiana Bitonti, who watched every version of the ballet she could find while growing up in East Moriches. Now a choreographer, Ms. Bitonti prefers the original, but with a twist.

She calls it “The Nutcracker ‘Sweet,’” which features a cast of 55 student dancers and seven professionals and will stage next weekend at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center.

“The Queen Rat should be very interesting this year because we have a girl who’s doing it who’s a pop-and-locker hip-hop dancer,” Ms. Bitonti said during a telephone interview last week. “That should be really, really fun for the audience because it’s really different choreography. It’s much more contemporary. She actually looks like a rat, the way she moves.”

Of all the East End productions, Studio 3 in Bridgehampton strays furthest from the original production with “Mixed Nuts,” which incorporates tap, jazz, contemporary and hip-hop into the standard ballet, according to studio owner Diane Shumway.

Last year, Ms. Shumway and her daughter, Meredith, set the inaugural “Mixed Nuts” during the present day. This weekend, the ballet is rewinding to the 1950s with a jazzy, rock-and-roll feel.

“I think there are many other personalities to young girls and boys that is not being a prince or a princess. It is not a reality,” Ms. Shumway said during a telephone interview last week. “I think my ‘Nutcracker’ is showing the real world. And it’s a fantasy. It’s like going to the movies. It really evokes the imagination. It’s a fun dream.”

Ms. Cancellieri has danced every role “The Nutcracker” has to offer, she said, though she never felt like a proper princess until last year’s production—one that will never be forgotten.

After Saturday night’s bows, the curtain shut and the dancers huddled together for a group photo, celebratory of a ballet well done. Then, out from the wings came Alfred Callahan, Ms. Cancellieri’s boyfriend.

“What’s going on?” Ms. Cancellieri recalled asking her dancers, who urged her, “Megan, go stand with him,” as she whined, “Why? What’s happening here?”

Reluctantly, Ms. Cancellieri—dressed in a purple Arabian dancer costume—approached her boyfriend. The curtain flew open as he dropped to one knee.

“The girls started screaming and jumping everywhere and I don’t think I even heard anything after that,” she laughed. “It’s funny. He says I never answered him. I was just standing there, going like this.”

She quickly nodded her head up and down, eyes wide.

“I looked at him and was like, ‘You couldn’t have waited until I was in clothes?’ because I was in this little purple Arabian top and the billowy pants,” she continued. “For eternity, my engagement photos will start and end with me in an Arabian outfit. It’s definitely one of the more shocking moments of our ‘Nutcracker’ career.”

From her younger dancers, Ms. Cancellieri is accustomed to receiving hand-drawn birthday cards after the last “Nutcracker” performance every year. But on Sunday afternoon, her polichinelles came bearing a different gift: crayon drawings of “Miss Megan’s proposal,” complete with the choreographer’s purple costume and Mr. Callahan, in a matching purple tie, presenting the ring box.

One of the pictures still hangs on the couple’s refrigerator, Ms. Cancellieri said.

“I don’t know what we’re gonna do this year to top it,” she said. “If somebody does something else, I’m going to probably die of shock.”

This month, four local productions of “The Nutcracker” will appear at venues across the East End. Danse Arts will stage the holiday classic on Friday, December 7, at 7 p.m., Saturday, December 8, at 5 p.m. and Sunday, December 9, at 2 p.m. at the Southampton High School. Tickets are $15, $10 for seniors and children age 3 to 16, and toddlers are free. For more information, call 537-1684 or visit dansearts.com.

Hampton Ballet Theatre School will stage its production on Friday, December 7, at 7 p.m., Saturday, December 8, at 1 p.m. and Sunday, December 9, at 2 p.m. at Guild Hall in East Hampton. Advance tickets are $20 and $15 for children under 12, or $25 and $20, respectively, the day of the performance. For more information, call (888) 933-4287 or visit hamptonballettheatreschool.com.

Studio 3 will stage “Mixed Nuts” on Friday, December 7, and Saturday, December 8, at 7 p.m., and Sunday, December 9, at 2 p.m. at Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor. Tickets are $20 and $15 for seniors and students. For more information, call 537-3008 or visit dancestudio3.com.

“The Nutcracker ‘Sweet’” will stage on Saturday, December 15, at 7 p.m. and Sunday, December 16, at 3 p.m. at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center. Tickets are $15. For more information, call 288-1500 or visit whbpac.org.