The Hard Nut Tickets

Costume design was fantastic - set design was great... great modern take on the nut cracker... lived the first half because of the great mix of modern and traditional ballet set in the 70s. Funny and enjoyable to watch. Orchestra sounded great! Lighting was spot on... would liked to have seen this theme carried on better in the second half of the show. It seemed more traditional in interpretation. The dancers from different countries might have been better to take place at a train station or airport as the backdrop. Loved the ending because it tied up the way it started... overall a great show!

Music: fantastic Costumes: fabulous Dancing: delightful, super snow scene Casting: love the gender bending Scenery: act 1 fun, act 2 almost none Humor: meh, dry humping (please remove it) The Act 1 set was black & white, the dancers kept touching a picture on the wall. I was sure in Act 2 the set would be the same but in fabulous color. Note: Although there was lots of “No late seating” signs, there was plenty of it. It was distracting.

Great orchestra playing familiar classics, and amazing feats of strength/flexibility mixed with jazzhands. See you next year.

This production is a charming sort of loving spoof of the traditional Nutcracker. For those of us who know the standard Nutcracker productions like the backs of our hands (and even for those who don't), this show is a joyful breath of fresh air! From the opening party scene which trades the customary Victorian ball gowns for the short shift dresses of the early 1960's with bold and colorful mod prints to the "snow" scene in which dancers continually burst onto the stage tossing pounds of confetti like fireworks, the show is a continual delight. Unlike other Mark Morris shows I have seen, this one is less focused on outlining the structure of the music itself with beautiful choreography. Instead, the intent seems to be hilarity and quirkiness. The Waltz of the Flowers is one notable example, with the dancers entering the stage as hunched, lumbering, and seemingly wilted flowers. Each number is a revelation and left me captivated. The costuming is brilliant. A harried maid scurries through the party scenes en pointe doing bourees in parallel while revelers shimmy, bump hips, and do the mashed potato to Tchaikovsky's score. Mark Morris was equally charming and amusing in his cameo role as Clara's father. One can only hope that this production will become a yearly (or at least regular) institution in Seattle.

The Nutcracker is one of my favorite parts about Christmastime and I thoroughly enjoyed this version of the classic ballet. It took the iconic music, characters, and scenes and presented them in a new and equally entertaining way. If I ever get an opportunity to see it again, I will try to go and invite others to join me.

This was really a fun holiday show! Familiar music and story with a twist!

Mark Morris's version of the classic Nutcracker is priceless!! All his imagination and innovation is on display. Plus he has awesome costumers and make-up artists to make all of it HAPPEN! And, best of all, HE is performing. The dance of the snowflakes is hilarious, and amazingly intricate, each of the foreign set dances is perfect (the French one looks like Sunday Afternoon on the Grande Jatte, or maybe Berthe Morrisot), the costumes in the dance of the flowers are brilliantly and clashingly colored, and the Russian dancers' even more. The maid on pointe is hilarious (and a guy yet!! wow!). I was in the 2nd balcony and the acting was still very clear, loved the pouting older sister, and Lauren is perfect as the young star. Just a great show!!

The Paramount theater is beautiful of course, a piece of splendor for any production. The Hard Nut was in the right spot. Amazing orchestration, choreography, dancing, set design. There was a nostalgic sense of the 70's, maybe even a flashback or two. Humor woven into the storyline was heartfelt, laughing aloud at times. But, JOY was probably my primary reaction to the combination of music and dance placed into a constantly changing background of creative sets and costumes. Better than eggnog, this high stuck with me for several days. Even now, the smile returns. A wonderful start to the season.Thank you Mark Morris and all the crew that kept it light and fantastic.

The bold costumes! The creative set design! The mega-skilled dancers! The orchestra! The props! Everything was spectacular while somehow simultaneously staying true to the classic. So. Good.

This was truly one of the most disappointing theatre experiences I have ever had. I love a good re-telling of an old story, but this was truly ridiculous with no clear concept or direction. I was left feeling confused about what I was in fact watching. It was not The Nutcracker, but I didn't go into this thinking it would be. What I wasn't prepared for was the mess of a story that I watched. Starting at what can only be described as a 70's key party where a teenage girl continually throws her self at every married man at the party, this tragic retelling of a classic story continues down a trail that was hard to come back from. At one point a baby is eaten by rats while a nanny sleeps next to it. Parents panic and then get over it cause their teenage daughter has somehow become a pig. A pig that can only be cured by finding a nut and cracking it open. Suitors line up, break teeth, have a dentist pull them, and move on until we come to the nutcracker who can crack it open, curing the teenage daughter of your pigdom. But that is all, she is cured. He in fact wants their younger daughter that for the rest of the show I watch dance around the fact that they want to make out until they finally do, and then they finally do....forever...as the rest of the characters throughout the course of the show dance around them. This topped with the absolutely sloppy performances provided by the dancers to the equally ridiculous choreography made for the worst theatre experience I have ever had to sit though. This is not a family friendly show, this is not a friendly show for anyone. Avoid it at all cost.

I loved the irreverence, the costumes. The snowflake sequence was my absolute favorite. I loved the maid too. I think I might have been comparing too much to the traditional story, but I found The Hard Nut a little hard to follow at times. I couldn't always tell what was going on. But my daughters enjoyed it so if it comes back to Seattle, we'll be there!

The dancers seem to be quite talented but the choreography seemed to be below the skill level of the dancers. The music was great, and the gender bending roles were neat, the dancing just felt lacking. I kept waiting for the real dancing to start. I enjoyed it and thought it was a good show but I would hesitate to recommend it to others as it wasn’t amazing

I sat in row T and every other row was staggered to the row in front and behind except T. I had to look around the person's head who was right in front of me. I wouldn't complain except that I paid $110 a ticket for three people. Also, the choreography was strange. The main dancer would be upstaged by supporting dancers, so it was difficult to see them. A lot of the dance moves were just shaking their butts or barely making any movements. I was expecting more of a ballet. Lastly, they held for applause for extremely way too long. Literally, my arm got fatigued from clapping. Granted I do have an injury, but still, they held for applause while the audience was obviously fatigued from clapping. It was an ok performance, but NOT all it was cracked up to be. I didn't get a lot of the humor. The Russian dance scene didn't have Russian dancing... I know it was doing great things for gender identity and pushing sexual norms, but I wish they had done as much for the artistic performance. I wouldn't recommend it.

Funny play on original Nut Cracker! Great sets, costumes, characters! Laughed out loud! Just the right kickoff to Christmas!

First off, it’s pretty clear this isn’t a ballet. But, once I got over that, I enjoyed this show SO MUCH! It was light hearted, spirited and relatively easy to follow. I particularly enjoyed seeing that the roles were filled by sort of whoever they felt could do the job, resulting in the “gender-bent” show that is eluded to in every description I saw. My favorite? The snowflakes. Best. Scene. Ever.

I could just be bias due to my love of Maurice Sendak's adaption but this was just a bit over the top. The first act was promising, funny, creative. The second act I had no idea what was going on. The artistic liberties with the beloved Nutcracker story lost me. Several people walked out. By the end we had almost the entire row to ourselves. The audience had slimmed down by almost a third by the end which made the directors insistence on 3 circuits of cast bowing awkward. Even the orchestra walked out midway through the 2nd.

I did not enjoy the production. but am not a Nutcracker fan

We liked everything about this show - the dancers were wonderful and then production is a welcome relief in the holiday offerings. And the orchestra- especially the harpist - was fabulous!