• Courtesy photo: CBT

EAST LANSING - Celebrating their 35th Anniversary, The Children's Ballet Theatre of Michigan is bringing in the Holidays performing a family favorite, The Nutcracker.

"With CBT, I've preformed a number of years. This is probably one of the last years, unless we have a huge shortage of men, then I may have to step in again, but other than that this will be my last year performing with the company," said Artistic Director and playing the role of Drosselmeyer, Gregory George.

Practice for the Holiday performances start in August and run up until the week of Thanksgiving. They are usually hours at a time including choreography by George over an orchestra of strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion.

Brianna Renfrew has been dancing since she was three years old and will play Sugar Plum Fairy this year, "She's the fairy of the land of sweets which is in the second act and after Clara goes through her dreams of battle and into snow to meet snow queen she'll finally come to meet Sugar Plum and Cavalier in the land of sweets."

Visual details are important when making wardrobe, Sugar Plum's bodice and overskirt must be seen all the way from the back row to the front of the theatre. Some treatments take at least 12 hours to stitch every detail.

Emelia Rush plays Clara and explained her favorite scene during The Nutcracker, "I really like the battle scene because it's really energetic and it's just a lot of fun."


Clara's little brother, Fritz will be played by Eden Kangas who admits it's fun to play his character, "Because you get to be naughty and it's fun just to try something different."

CBT's version of The Nutcracker is slightly different from the original, every year they change how the rat king dies which keeps the audience guessing.

How will the rat king die this year? You'll have to see for yourself at the Wharton Center for Performing Arts this Thanksgiving weekend.