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