Few dancers on the Gulf Coast know The Nutcracker as intimately as Zoe Lombard-Todd. The artistic director of Children’s Dance Theatre and owner of Creative Outlet Dance Academy in Fairhope has performed in the holiday classic for more than 23 years, and in 2024 she brought her own hometown version back to the stage for a second season under the title A Fairhope Nutcracker — a production that swaps a Victorian parlor for the streets, shops and bay of downtown Fairhope.
The 2024 performances of A Fairhope Nutcracker were staged at the Fairhope Civic Center on Friday, November 22, at 6 p.m., and Saturday, November 23, at 1 p.m. and 6 p.m., with a cast of 80 dancers. The production blended the traditional full-length ballet with local landmarks and a few gentle rewrites designed with young audiences in mind.
A Lifetime Inside the Land of the Sweets
Lombard-Todd’s history with the ballet began when she was 7 years old, cast as a baker with Alabama Dance Theater under the direction of Major Burchfield.
“I popped out of an oven in the ‘Land of the Sweets’. That was a big deal to be chosen to pop out!” she said.
At 11, she was cast as Clara — the lead role of the young girl who travels on a magical journey with the Nutcracker Prince — with Anne Duke directing. Clara is traditionally danced by a child, but when Lombard-Todd was 20, Winthrop Corey, director of Mobile Ballet, chose to present an older version of the character, a decision inspired by her.
Talking about the role, she said she still knows it completely. “I could jump in now and do the role, if necessary. It was my favorite!” she said.
That depth of experience — as a child in the corps, as a young Clara and as an adult Clara — gave her a detailed understanding of how each part of the ballet works, which she drew on when she began reshaping the story for a Fairhope audience. Demonstrating in the studio how Clara reacts when her Nutcracker toy transforms into a prince, she slipped easily back into the character’s wide-eyed excitement, a reminder of how thoroughly the role has stayed with her.
The Story Behind the Ballet
The Nutcracker is one of the most performed ballets in the world. Set to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s famous score, it premiered at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, in December 1892, with choreography by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov. Its story comes from E.T.A. Hoffmann’s 1816 tale The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, by way of a French adaptation by Alexandre Dumas.
The ballet’s original run was not a runaway success, but its music quickly became beloved. In the United States, the ballet’s rise as a holiday tradition is often traced to San Francisco Ballet’s full-length production in 1944 and George Balanchine’s 1954 staging for New York City Ballet, which helped make an annual Nutcracker a fixture for dance companies and schools across the country. Today, many regional companies depend on the ballet as their signature event of the year, and local productions frequently add hometown touches — which is exactly what Lombard-Todd set out to do.
Downtown Fairhope Takes the Stage
In the traditional first act, Clara’s family hosts a Christmas Eve party in a stately living room. In A Fairhope Nutcracker, the party moves outdoors into the street, echoing the city’s annual Lighting of the Trees celebration, when crowds fill downtown Fairhope as the trees along its streets light up for the holidays. Held each November, the event is one of the most anticipated nights of the year in the city, and setting Clara’s party in that atmosphere gives local audiences an instantly recognizable scene: families bundled up, shop windows glowing and children pressing their noses to the glass of a toy store.
“Families are gathering and window-shopping when Clara and her brother, Fritz, go to Fantasy Island Toys, where Clara sees a ballerina Doll and Fritz, a Soldier Doll,” Lombard-Todd explained. Uncle Drosselmeyer — played by Don Prosch, a former member of the Martha Graham Dance Company — joins the celebration and magically brings the dolls to life.
Sets depicting downtown Fairhope were created by artist Leslie Baumhower, placing the familiar streetscape behind the dancers. The role of the Nutcracker Prince was danced by Matthew Donnell, a professional guest artist from North Carolina.
The local references continued throughout the ballet:
- The battle scene: In many versions, the fight between the mice and the toy soldiers involves swords and cannons, which can be frightening for small children. Lombard-Todd replaced the violence with comedy — the mice bring smelly cheese that causes the Mouse Queen to pass out.
- The journey: Instead of riding a sleigh through a snowy forest, Clara travels by boat, and the traditional snowflakes become dancers portraying “The Mist of Mobile Bay.”
- The Land of the Sweets: In the second act, Mother Ginger arrives with an ice cream cart from Mr. Gene’s Beans, a longtime Fairhope favorite.
The changes keep Tchaikovsky’s score and the ballet’s structure intact while grounding the fantasy in places local families know, from the toy store window to the waters of Mobile Bay.
Preserving Full-Length Ballet for a New Generation
For all of the local flavor, Lombard-Todd said the heart of the project is keeping classical ballet alive for young people.
“I feel passionate about preserving the art of traditional full-length ballets. It is important educationally for children to experience this art form,” she said.
Children’s Dance Theatre, the resident company, has 18 dancers. To fill out the production, Lombard-Todd held open community auditions, expanding the 2024 cast to 80 dancers — from the youngest performers cast as angels and mice to the principal dancers leading the ballet.
Community casting is a hallmark of regional Nutcracker productions. Opening parts to dancers from multiple studios gives children the experience of rehearsing and performing a full-length ballet alongside more advanced dancers and professional guest artists, and it brings families, grandparents and friends into the audience. For many young dancers, a first role as a mouse, angel or party child becomes the start of years spent working their way up through the ballet’s roles — much as Lombard-Todd did herself.
Staging a full-length ballet with a cast that size is a months-long undertaking. Community productions typically hold auditions well ahead of the holidays, then spend the fall rehearsing individual scenes before bringing the whole cast together for spacing and dress rehearsals in the theater. Costumes must be fitted for dozens of children, sets built and moved, and lighting and sound coordinated with the music. The 2024 season marked Lombard-Todd’s second time guiding that process under the Fairhope Nutcracker banner, following the production’s debut the year before.
Tickets, Soirée and Community Support
Tickets for the 2024 performances were priced at $10, $15 and $20 and were sold through a link on Children’s Dance Theatre’s Facebook page.
Because Children’s Dance Theatre is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, it paired opening night with a fundraiser. A Nutcracker Soirée was scheduled for 5:15 p.m. before the Friday performance, with tickets from $30 to $50. Soirée tickets included admission to the full production, a silent auction, and hors d’oeuvres and sweets before the show and during intermission from Aloha Hospitality, Panini Pete’s and Fairhope Roasting Company.
Events like these are common among nonprofit arts groups, which often rely on ticket sales, donations and local business sponsorship to cover costs such as costumes, sets, theater rental and fees for guest artists. Local restaurants and businesses donating food and auction items is one way a community like Fairhope underwrites its arts scene.
Fairhope’s Arts Tradition
A homegrown ballet fits comfortably in Fairhope, a city with a long reputation as an arts community. Founded in 1894 as a single-tax colony by followers of economist Henry George, the town on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay attracted artists, writers and progressive educators in its early decades, and that creative identity has endured. Today, downtown galleries, the Eastern Shore Art Center, the annual Arts & Crafts Festival and monthly art walks keep the arts central to the city’s character, and local dance studios and theater groups add live performance to the mix.
The holiday season is one of the busiest times of year downtown, with lighted trees, decorated storefronts and seasonal events drawing visitors from across Baldwin County and beyond. A Nutcracker that puts those same streets on stage connects the ballet to one of the city’s most beloved traditions.
How to Find Future Performances
Children’s Dance Theatre has used its Facebook page to share performance details and ticket links. Families interested in future productions of A Fairhope Nutcracker, audition opportunities or classes at Creative Outlet Dance Academy should check there or contact the organization directly for current schedules, since dates, times and prices can change from year to year.
As George Balanchine once said, “Ballet is important and significant, yes, but most of all it is a pleasure.” For Lombard-Todd, bringing that pleasure to Fairhope’s children, one mouse and one sugarplum at a time, is the point.