Snow in San Francisco?! Twelve times a week as San Francisco Ballet began thirty-three performances of Helgi Tomasson’s Nutcracker. A Bay Area tradition of the past eighteen years. Across the cast are 110 SF Ballet School children slowly returning to pre-pandemic shows.

“This is a most joyous return to the stage for our students, many of whom have missed their favorite holiday tradition over the past three years,” says SF Ballet School Director Patrick Armand. “Nutcracker offers an invaluable opportunity to prepare a dancer for their career, to instill professional values and rigor in a supportive and fun environment—we are thrilled to be back.” This year Tomasson’s Nutcracker is set in San Francisco in 1915 during the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Production features designs by Tony Award winners Michael Yeargan (scenic) and Martin Pakledinaz (costume), lighting designs by James F. Ingalls, and projection design by Wendall K. Harrington, and an iconic blizzard of 150 pounds of snow billowing from the fly space.

Fun Facts

Nutcracker features 83 Company dancers and 110 SF Ballet School students in 183 breathtaking costumes, the largest production in SF Ballet’s 90-year history.

150 pounds of “snow” are used for each performance, requiring at least 12 stagehands to deploy. The snow is also recycled from year to year, which means that some of it is from 2004, the year of the premiere.

Nutcracker uses 45 stagehands while a typical triple-bill performance uses approximately 20. The houses on the street drop in Act 1 are based on San Francisco’s iconic “Painted Ladies.”

San Francisco Ballet's Nutcracker continues through Tuesday, December 27th at the War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA. For tickets and additional information, visit www.sfballet.org or call (415) 865-2000, M-F 10am-4pm.