Butler Ballet: The Nutcracker

Butler Ballet: The Nutcracker at Clowes Memorial Hall

Mother Ginger and her Polichinelles return to Butler Ballet's stage, adding a playful chapter to the holiday spectacle. Butler Ballet's *The Nutcracker* does the opposite. On December 3 at 7:30 PM, Clowes Memorial Hall in Indianapolis becomes the place where the season stops being a to-do list and turns into a story you can actually sit inside. Dancing, costumes, scenery and pyrotechnics are all part of this production. That is real spectacle, and it is the kind of night worth leaving the couch for.

Tchaikovsky's score is the heartbeat of the ballet, and here it comes with serious live muscle: the Butler Ballet Orchestra and the Indianapolis Children's Choir, directed by Richard Auldon Clark. Live is the word Dancers move, musicians play, young voices rise, and the whole room shares one breath. A recording can't give you that. Neither can a screen on a quiet December evening.

This is Butler Ballet's own full production, and the 2026 version includes the return of Mother Ginger and her Polichinelles. It's the sort of moment people lean over to whisper about at intermission and bring up again on the drive home. Butler's Nutcracker runs December 3–6, and the 7:30 PM performance on the 3rd gives you a front-row seat to the start of the holiday season. Pick your date, gather your people, and grab your seats for Butler Ballet's The Nutcracker at Clowes Memorial Hall.