10-Year-Old Daughter of Valley View Administrator Lands Role in Nutcracker

When the curtain goes up on the Joffrey Ballet’s Nutcracker in December, 10-year-old Scarlett Nash, daughter of Judie Nash, Director of Professional Development for Valley View School 365U, will be making her downtown stage debut.

Scarlett, who lives in Channahon, was selected to play a soldier in the production after making it through an open audition with hundreds of other Chicago area youngsters as well as a rigorous call-back audition.

“She auditioned for a role in the Nutcracker last year but didn’t make it,” Judie Nash said. “What we’re most proud of is that she decided to try again and worked extra hard to meet a goal she set for herself.”

The Aux Sable Middle School (Minooka) 5th grade honor student has been dancing since she was two years old. Currently studying at the Yorkville Performing Arts Center, Scarlett is proficient in tap, ballet, jazz, modern, lyrical and hip hop and has several regional and national dance titles to her credit.

Several years ago she danced as a Munchkin when the traveling cast of the Wizard of Oz stopped at Joliet’s Rialto Square Theatre.

Judie and her husband, John, still don’t know which alternating cast (red or green) Scarlett will be a part of, but they do know the Nutcracker opens at the Auditorium Theatre on Dec. 6 and continues through Dec. 28.

“This is something she really wanted,” Judie Nash said. “She independently prepared herself for this audition in a way you don’t see from many 10-year-olds.”

The Joffrey Academy of Dance production of the Nutcracker was conceived by and is directed by Robert Joffrey with live full-orchestra music composed by Peter llyich Tchaikovsky.