Community Corner
Nuts for Nutcrackers
Here are places in and around town with Nutcracker performances in the next couple of weeks.
Many Claras and nutcracker princes are entertained by many a sugar plum fairy during holiday-season performances of The Nutcracker.
Ridgefield and its environs is no exception to the Nutcracker mania that sweeps through the country annually. Many of the Fairfield County-area performances were this past weekend, but there are still plenty of local opportunities to get Tchaikovsky's suite recorded on endless mental loop in the next couple weeks.
For people in mouse king withdrawal, the soonest performance is Friday at Danbury High School, performed by the Danbury Symphony Orchestra and a couple hundred area dancers. (Fans can catch repeat performances on Dec. 12 and 13.)
On Dec. 12, there is also a performance at Southbury High School presented for the 21st year in a row by the Woodbury-based Main Street Ballet.
On Dec. 13, the Danbury and Southbury productions take their final bows, and the Connecticut Dance School is presenting two Nutcracker showings at Fairfield University.
Miss those four performances, and it will be necessary to wait six days, when the Nutcracker descends on Ridgefield.
"Nuts About the Nutcracker," the Enchanted Garden's annual production—which, according to dancing students promoting the event at the Holiday Stroll, is an annually-updated, Ridgefield-centric take on the classic ballet—is being performed twice at East Ridge Middle School on Dec. 19. The Ridgefield Conservatory of Dance's two-day performance run also opens that afternoon.
The two companies make it possible to see versions of The Nutcracker four times in Ridgefield on Dec. 19—at noon, 2 p.m., 5 p.m. and (arriving late) 6 p.m. And anyone nuts enough to do so will only be out $80.
The Conservatory of Dance's performance closes the following day, on Dec. 20.
Here is a Nutcracker performance schedule, designed for optimum attendance strategizing:
Dec. 11 Danbury, 7:30 p.m.
Dec. 12 Danbury, 6 p.m.; Southbury, 7 p.m.
Dec. 13 Southbury, 2 p.m.; Danbury, 3 p.m., Fairfield, 1 p.m. and 4 p.m.
Dec. 19 "Nuts about the Nutcracker," noon and 5 p.m.; Conservatory of Dance, 2 p.m. and 6 p.m.
Dec. 20 Conservatory of Dance, 2 p.m.
