December 16, 2021 By Michelle McGrath
Celebrating the magic of the holidays through the joy of dance, South Shore Ballet Theatre presents the seasonal classic The Nutcracker, on December 18 and 19, 2 pm, Thayer Academy Center for Performing Arts, 745 Washington Street, Braintree.
Performing Hingham dancers include Delanie Carter, Lillian Chamberlain, Catherine Delorie, Estella Engdahl, Sydney Hemmer, Phoebe Hertzog, Roen Howell, Annie Hughes, Isabella Lovett, Grace MacKenzie, Elizabeth McKinell, Saachi Menon, Louisia Murphy, Thomas Rosenthal, Ali Rossetti, Tala Sanford, Louisa Stevenson, Marlo Stevenson, Evelyn Urbano and Madeleine Van de Kieft.
Catherine Delorie and Tala Sanford are from Hingham and they have been dancing the role of Sugar Plum Fairy for all SSBT's community and town performances.
For over 13 years South Shore Ballet Theatre’s full-length production of The Nutcracker has celebrated the magic of the holidays on Boston’s South Shore. Based on E.T.A. Hoffman’s tale “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King,” and set to Tchaikovsky’s treasured musical score, The Nutcracker is the dance classic that offers quintessential enchantment in holiday season entertainment. Become entranced by Clara as she explores a charmed world from her family’s living room on Christmas Eve, adventures through an enchanted forest of dancing snowflakes, into the magical Land of The Sweets led by the Sugar Plum Fairy.
“Resuming live performance is vital to the education and development of our dancers, especially following the limitations of the pandemic. We are very excited to welcome back the community to our annual tradition of The Nutcracker and are very grateful to Thayer Academy and their leadership for our long-term collaborative relationship supporting the arts on the South Shore.” shares SSBT Founding Artistic Director Marthavan McKeon.
Known for its spectacular professional-quality productions, SSBT engages guest artists in The Nutcracker’s leading roles, including Nichola Montt of Hanover as Sugar Plum Fairy, Rachel Smith of Plymouth as Dew Drop, and Haissan Booth of Dorchester as Drosselmeyer. The production also engages 92 student dancers from SSBT ballet training programs, gathered from 24 South Shore communities.
Founded in 2008, South Shore Ballet Theatre is a pre-professional ballet school with world class faculty, training tomorrow’s dancers today. SSBT administers American Ballet Theatre’s (ABT®) National Training Curriculum, a breakthrough eight-level program that combines high quality artistic training with the basics of dancer health and child development. The National Training Curriculum consists of a comprehensive set of age-appropriate, outcome-based guidelines to provide the highest quality ballet training to dance students of all ages and skill levels.
Tickets to The Nutcracker are $22, available for purchase starting November 15, available at buy.tututix.com/southshoreballettheatre. The performance is family-friendly and plays at about 90 minutes. If the scheduled performances are an early sellout, a third performance will be added on Saturday, December 18, 6 pm, visit the website for updates. To make a donation to support South Shore Ballet Theatre, or for more information about SSBT’s programs, tuition and performances, visit southshoreballettheatre.com, call 781-312-7224, or follow South Shore Ballet Theatre on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Pinterest.
