♪♪ Balanchine's Nutcracker has something for everyone.

We have members of our audience who are who saw the production as kids who now are bringing their grandkids to the production.

You can sit in the audience of nutcracker and you can hear this collective gasp in certain places and you can hear the oohs and the ahhs and you think they're coming from children, but you're not sure, it might be the adults that are with them.

There's something about a child on stage making believe that they're in this beautiful world.

There's no way you can top that.

It was devastating to not have The Nutcracker live last year, to not have these moments in this great city of live art that everyone waits all year almost 365 days to revisit.

There's nothing quite like that shared experience among 2,000, 3,000 patrons and 60 orchestra members and the whole works.

I think the success of ballet in America hinged on the success of The Nutcracker.

It is really why we survive.

Nutcrackers where we bring in new audiences first and foremost, but also create a revenue that allows us to do everything else.

To have something that generations and generations kept coming back to that you could bring a family to, the team here thought to go through one year without a Nutcracker?

I mean, the one thing that we look forward to, the one thing that that we give every year.

We just couldn't do it.

We did 15 performances outdoors full Nutcracker and it was the most rewarding moment of my life when I first heard the beginnings of the score understanding what we were doing at the time that we were doing it.

Peter Boal: *excited gasp * Like so excited because it's Christmas Eve, so- *excited gasp *.

Yeah.

I can remember my first experience.

I mean, obviously at some point I said, I want to do that.

What path do I need to take?

Where do I need to study?

How many lessons?

What do I have to be good at in order to get that, that privilege of standing on that stage and experiencing that?

You can go to ballet class is one thing, but you don't get hooked until you perform.

That feeling of performing live in front of an audience.

There's nothing like it, and I think George Balanchine never forgot that, and he never gave up that idea that it was his it was his responsibility to bring that experience to kids just like he had.

My first performance in The Nutcracker would have been nine years old.

I was a child in the party scene, which was still to this day, one of the most fun roles I've ever done on stage.

There's something about The Nutcracker where you're going up the levels.

It's like school, right?

You start the angels and then if you work really hard, you're going to get to party scene and then maybe you'll get Marie.

And you start graduating and you grow up in this production.

My mom drove me into the city to see my first Nutcracker, which was New York City Ballet's The Nutcracker, when I was five years old and I just sat there in awe the entire time until the Sugar Plum Fairy came out and I tapped my mom on the shoulder and I was like, Mom, I'm going to do that one day.

My first Nutcracker performance was in 2004, when I was nine years old and I was a party scene child and an angel.

One of the most important children's roles is that number one angel who leads the line coming straight towards the audience at the start of the second act, which is such a breathtaking moment for the audience.

So the second act starts with 12 angels that glide down center stage and create a pathway for the Sugar Plum Fairy to come out of the wings.

Each year it's someone different and it's so fun to see, you know, is she going to smile?

Is she not?

You know, how confident is she?

And and of course, they always come through when the pressure's on.

I got to lead out that line of angels and then stand right next to center stage when the sugar plum was dancing her variation watching from, I think, the best view in the house standing right beside her.

So when that moment finally came true for me in 2015, I got to debut the Sugar Plum Fairy.

It was just literal dream come true and I always try to have that special moment with the angels because I do still remember when I was the angel and admiring the Sugar Plum Fairy and you can just see the admiration from them to the company dancers sitting on the floor, looking up and just getting to watch and really learn.

What's brilliant about children on stage is that they get into it.

They become what they have to be.

And that's why, for me, we wanted to find ways in which to keep children as part of the production.

It was devastating last year to remove that door and that gateway into this art form.

It's so fun to see the new crop of kids each year.

That direct connection to the magic that these child performers are going to experience is really palpable.

The dancers are so excited they've never been more excited to do Nutcracker in their life.

I'm looking forward to seeing their triumphs as they step on the stage for the first time, just like I did many, many moons ago.

This is something they've missed.

They haven't gotten to perform in a long time and and can't wait to see that joy and the nerves that come with it.

What makes for me, The Nutcracker so heartwarmingly, profound an experience are the children.

To have a chance to sit in that audience, to get dressed up, to get your kids dressed up, to get your grandkids in their best clothes so that you can go out to the ballet, I'm just so excited and thrilled that we're able to bring that back this year.