Brown Sugar Nutcracker Overview
2023 will be the inaugural performance of Brown Sugar Nutcracker and will feature highlights from the story, as we work towards a full production in 2025.
This story is about what comes next? When tragedy strikes a home, how do we continue to celebrate? A single Mom with her daughter builds a new sense of family with the people in their community and creates a widely diverse and beautiful family. They host a fantastic holiday party filled with a unique variety of cultures.
As each guest enters, we get a taste of what they have to offer to the celebration. There is a New Yorker, a Brazilian, two sisters with Middle Eastern flair, and Aunt Shirley and her children. The party scene shows how this community features a variety of styles of dance.
There is a gift exchange among the children from the exotic Uncle D where the young daughter Isabelle receives a Brown Sugar Nutcracker. As the children explore their gifts it turns into a battle which results in the breaking of the Nutcracker. Uncle D from New York tries to console Isabelle with a story of how people battle the rats of New York in the subways. He reminds her to be brave and resilient in the challenges life presents. He wraps her broken Nutcracker and seals him in his box of magical toys.
As the clock strikes midnight the rascal rats show up to break up the party. In Brown Sugar Nutcracker, the Rat Battle is a hip hop scene. The Nutcracker emerges from the box to defeat the rats, when Isabelle exhibits her new found bravery to throw her shoe and defeat the Rat King.
The party comes to an end and Isabele is comforted and falls asleep only to dream about each of her Moms friends as they tell their story about where they are from and how they create joy through music and dance. Isabelle wakes up to a full house of guests from the night before and they perform a final dance united as one family.
This show was created with diversity in mind and inclusivity as its mission.
The show contains live music inspired by Tchaicovsky, and the cast includes both professional and local performers and choreographers working as an ensemble.