It's the Nutcracker-iest Time of Year

Several productions are leaping onto the stages of Southern California.

What to Know

  • Inland Pacific Ballet will visit Rancho Cucamonga, Riverside, and Claremont
  • LA Ballet will dance in Cerritos, Glendale, at UCLA, in Hollywood, and in Redondo Beach
  • Moscow Ballet will perform at The Wiltern

When Clara, the hero at the heart of Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker," departs this world for the realm of dancing mice and Sugar Plum Fairies, a number of magical things occur, including, quite famously, a Christmas tree growing to gargantuan proportions.

But our path to finding our way to that enchanted realm?

We won't require anything as dramatic as a fir that grows before our eyes, nor a nutcracker that's seemingly in possession of powerful magic: We simply need to choose where we'd like to enjoy this seasonal staple.

Though simply calling "The Nutcracker" a "seasonal staple" doesn't seem to go nearly far enough in describing how central this timeless story is to the end-of-the-year celebrations.

The music, the imagery, and the characters have found their way onto our radios, our televisions, and into our decorations, too.

Several Southern California-based ballet companies will don the snowflake tutus and princely togs over the coming weeks, all to delight those fans who'd never miss a year, nor a particular production, to kids sitting down for their very first "Nutcracker" experience ever.

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Inland Pacific Ballet will leap into a few cities, starting on Nov. 30 in Rancho Cucamonga, while the Los Angeles Ballet will call upon both Redondo Beach and Hollywood, as well as other local stages, too.

The Moscow Ballet will leap at The Wiltern in "The Great Russian Nutcracker" on the weekend before Christmas.

Other shows, from a host of troupes, will flower like so many poinsettias in the days ahead.

Will you see every version, because you're just that nutty for "The Nutcracker"? Are you a completist when it comes to Clara and her ethereal adventures?

Best start soon, for "The Nutcracker" won't wait long. Like the chiming of a clock at midnight, it will have to leap out of our lives, again, for another eleven months.

Months that seem a little less enchanted, and definitely lighter in the dancing mice arena.

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