Devon Carney updates The Nutcracker for the Kansas City Ballet

December 2, 2015

Scott Wilson,

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If you’ve seen The Nutcracker once, you’ve seen it 30 times. That’s true enough — if you’re an unrepentant humbug or if you miss the Kansas City Ballet’s world-premiere production of this altogether reimagined holiday classic.

Devon Carney, who joined the company as its artistic director in 2013, has choreographed the all-new show, marking a departure from the Todd Bolender moves familiar to KC audiences the past three decades. Tchaikovsky’s score (played by the Kansas City Symphony, led by the ballet’s music director, Ramona Pansegrau) remains the same — mostly — as does the plot (a girl without nut allergies forms an instant attachment to a gift, experiences weirdly Ambien-like dreams), but the retooled design and staging promise to make even those elements feel different. Thrillingly different, Carney hopes, as he explains in an e-mail interview.

The Pitch: In staging an all-new production of a beloved theatrical event, what did you know from the outset — before the choreography, even — about what you would do with design and technical aspects?

Carney: I very much wanted a production that would be highly entertaining to our Kansas City audiences. I wanted the show to be full of exciting moments, with vibrant color and exceptional three-dimensionality within the sets and costumes. This lends itself to a more fully immersive experience for the audience. I also wanted to take advantage of our current technical capabilities in all aspects of the production that are available to us today in the 21st century.

It’s a fantastical story — how much does it benefit from what can be done today with sound and lighting and state-of-the-art equipment?

In terms of the lighting capabilities that we have now at our disposal, the use of LED technology has very much broadened the possibilities of a fuller spectrum of lighting within each and every unit that employs this technology. We are also using automated lights that can actually rotate and move to point in different directions for each light cue, thus offering a virtually limitless set of focal points per lighting unit. Having someone like Trad Burns at the helm of our lighting design for The Nutcracker has brought this and many other newer technologies to this production. I am also taking advantage of lower-weight materials in the construction of sets and costumes.

What do you think will surprise a tradition-minded audience most in this new staging?

Well, I wouldn’t want to give away too much, but there are certainly some very exciting moments within the show, which will have lasting wonderful memories for children and adults alike. How Clara is transported to the land of the sweets is a very beautiful experience to behold! Act 2 has several environmental elements that lend to the feel of the location of the divertissements and makes for a more whimsical, dreamlike world for Clara, whose adventure we are experiencing. There are also some portions of the original score that have been returned to the orchestration, which haven’t been heard in years past.

What will people find most familiar in it, besides the music?

The story of Clara and her adventure into a dreamlike world of the Land of the Sweets — based on the tale “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King,” written by E.T.A. Hoffmann — is still very much at the core of this production. Drosselmeier has a more appropriately substantial presence within the entire production now. Also, the location still begins in the general Victorian era, before we enter Clara’s dream-world adventures.

If there weren’t a Nutcracker, what under-the-radar piece in the canon — or what yet-to-be-translated-to-ballet story — would you want to show a big audience at the holidays?

Wow! I can’t even imagine the holiday season without The Nutcracker! It has been a part of my life in the dance world for 40 years, and it seems to me it will be around for quite a long time as a part of the holiday season.

In an altered reality where The Nutcracker did not exist, I guess there could be some very interesting works that could be created that might be a viable alternative as a holiday-type production. There are several currently existing holiday-type stories, such as the classic tale by Hans Christian Andersen titled “The Snow Queen” and the enchanting, touching story by Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit. But for all practical purposes, we all know that The Nutcracker reigns supreme as the wonderful holiday classic of choice — especially here in the states and in Kansas City.