There's a moment before every big opening night when the theater goes completely still. Not quiet—still. Like the whole building is holding its breath. I'll never forget feeling that way myself, back when I was young enough to believe the stage was magic and old enough to know how much work made that magic possible.
Now picture that feeling through the eyes of a 17-year-old stepping into the Sugar Plum Fairy role for the first time.
That's the electricity building around Costa Mesa's upcoming Nutcracker production, and if you've been watching the ballet world lately, you probably already know what I'm talking about. A young dancer—someone who was still in the studio drilling tendus just a few years ago—has been handed one of ballet's most iconic roles. Not as a stunt, not as a gimmick. Because she's earned it.
The path to this moment isn't glamorous, no matter what the tutus might suggest. It looks like 6 AM technique classes. It looks like taped-up toes and ice packs after rehearsal. It looks like years of showing up when no one's watching, refining the same eight counts until they live in your muscle memory so deeply you could dance them in your sleep. This dancer didn't arrive here by accident—she carved her way here, one deliberate choice at a time.
What makes this casting significant goes beyond one dancer's story, though. Classical ballet has spent decades looking a certain way on stage—tall, porcelain, uniform. Beautiful in a very narrow definition of the word. What's shifting now, in studios and casting rooms across the country, is a broader understanding of what a ballerina can look like and where she can come from. When a young dancer of color or a body type that wouldn't have been considered "traditional" steps into a lead role, it's not a concession—it's a revelation. The art gets richer. The stories land differently. Audiences who never saw themselves represented suddenly feel seen.
I'm not naive enough to think one casting fixes everything. But it matters. It opens doors that were previously shut. It tells a 12-year-old girl in the back row watching the curtain rise that she could be up there someday, too.
As for this particular Nutcracker? I genuinely can't remember the last time I looked forward to one this much. The music will be the same—Tchaikovsky's score is non-negotiable, and thank goodness—but the interpretation won't be. A young artist bringing her whole self to a role carries a different energy than a seasoned pro going through the motions. There's hunger in it. There's something to prove. And there's the kind of raw, unfiltered joy that only comes from performing something you genuinely cannot believe is happening to you.
The theater will be full of children in their holiday finest, some of them seeing a live ballet for the first time. Some of them will leave wanting to be her. And that's the whole point, isn't it? One generation lifting the next, tutu by tutu, arabesque by arabesque.
I'll be in the audience. Front row if I can manage it.
