NYCB Vol. 13 No. 1 - Nutcracker

(1/52) Counting down 52 NYCB Nutcrackers this year with stories from NYCB dancers past and present! The first story comes from our opening night Sugar Plum Fairy, Megan Fairchild!

“Nutcracker was my EVERYTHING as a child—the highlight of my year, the place where I was exposed to professionals in the ballet world for the first time. It was an enormous privilege to get to dance with the Ballet West dancers every year, and the reason I knew I wanted to be a dancer. I was twice a Buffoon, three years the Clara [2], the drummer in the battle scene, a page in the second act, and finally, as a trainee I did snow, flowers, and Chinese.

Photo by Rolf Kay for Ballet West

“Maybe the highlight is this classic picture [3] with my brother Robbie—he was my trouble making Fritz two years in a row. We had horrible makeup, my hair was horrible, but we were having the time of our lives! Nutcracker meant so much to me that when it was over, my mom said she worried I was in a depression. It was so difficult to come down from the excitement!

“Flash forward to 2011 when Joaquin de Luz and I were chosen to do the PBS filming of New York City Ballet’s Nutcracker. [4] That was a stressful, but very proud moment for me!”

Now, every year that recording of Megan’s Sugar Plum Fairy performance is watched by little girls all around the world who have the same big dreams she did.