The cast of The Slutcracker surround Jake Brown who is wearing a star-like crown and posing with hands crossed in front of him. They are all looking out at the viewer.
image cred­it Jason Aldous

From School For Gift­ed Chil­dren, and the cre­ator of Change Your Own Life comes a new queer bal­let for Christ­mas. Loose­ly based on the clas­sic Tchaikovsky bal­let The Nut­crack­er, The Slut­crack­er tells the sto­ry of a queer cho­sen fam­i­ly Christ­mas gath­er­ing, and a roman­tic whirl­wind night through the queer streets of Welling­ton.

Direc­tor Jean Ser­gent says “I was sit­ting in the BATS dress­ing room on the first day we went into lev­el 1 after lock­down. I was com­plete­ly alone, about to per­form a live-stream of Change Your Own Life, and I sud­den­ly thought, man, I am lone­ly in here with­out oth­er actors!” The Slut­crack­er was Jean’s answer to that lone­li­ness. In cre­at­ing a show with a strong ensem­ble spir­it, ground­ed in a desire to con­nect and have fun with oth­er per­form­ers, Jean want­ed to give peo­ple a chance to make the­atre in 2020. “It was tough dur­ing lock­down for live artists. We had no idea if shows would be going ahead or not. Live artists depend on gigs to make a liv­ing, and so many of us saw so many of our jobs get can­celled or put on hold.”

Mul­ti-tal­ent­ed Brigid Costel­lo is return­ing to Welling­ton to chore­o­graph The Slut­crack­er, fol­low­ing four years as the com­pa­ny chore­o­g­ra­ph­er for the Pop Up Globe in Auck­land. Hav­ing played Clara in The Nut­crack­er dur­ing her pro­fes­sion­al bal­let career, Brigid is excit­ed to queer the text and change the norms around who bal­let is for. Fresh from a sell-out sea­son of The Glit­ter Gar­den, com­pos­er Maxwell Apse will be arrang­ing the orig­i­nal Tchaikovsky score to bring in mod­ern beats and the sounds of the streets, clubs, and cafes of Welling­ton. The ensem­ble includes Dryw McArthur, Jake Brown, Andrew Pat­ter­son, Geor­gia Kel­lett, Felix Cross­ley-Pritchard, Shay Tani­rau, and Sam Ropati.

Join Clyde, Joe, Moth­er Gin­ger, the Rat King, and the Sug­ar Plum Fairy as they explore the true mean­ing of Christ­mas — con­nec­tion, love, joy, and com­mu­ni­ty!

  • The Slut­crack­er, on at BATS The­atre* 24 Novem­ber — 12 Decem­ber 2020 (Get the Fes­tive Upgrade for $40 to add a tasty tip­ple to your tick­et and to give the artists involved a few more dol­lars!)

* Have a look at all the oth­er shows BATS have to the end of the year. We’re so lucky that we can see our tal­ent­ed cre­ators and per­form­ers in a shared the­atre space.

image cred­it Jason Aldous