The Nutcracker

Tony Tucci has been resident lighting designer for Ballet Austin’s repertory, for 34 years, lighting designer/director for Ben Stevenson’s Texas Ballet Theater and Bruce Wood Dance. Recently designed Flemming Flindt’s Phaedra Ballet for the Mariinsky Theatre in Vladivostok Russia. Tucci created the lighting designs for Bernstein’s Mass at the Long Center in June 2018. In September 2018, Tucci designed a new production of Cinderella, choreographed by Ben Stevenson for the National Ballet of China. Tucci and has created designs for national and international dance companies: Washington Ballet, Houston Dance Salad, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Colorado Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, Ballet West, Cirque Ziva-Golden Dragon Acrobats, Royal Danish Ballet, Winnipeg and Swedish Ballets, Hong Kong Ballet, Singapore Dance Theatre, Ballet Contemporaneo de Caracas, Christopher Bruce’s Kingdom- Geneva Ballet, Flemming Flindt’s Caroline Mathilde and Lucifer’s Daughter-Royal Danish Ballet. Tucci has designed for musical theater, including Austin productions of Damn Yankees, Carousel, West Side Story, Annie, Gypsy, Jesus Christ Superstar, Music Man, Oklahoma, A Chorus Line, Carousel and Sound of Music as well as Charles Duggan’s productions of Dames at Sea in San Francisco and at the Goodspeed Opera House. For 1996 Summer Olympics, Tucci designed for the Cultural Olympiad, showcasing national and international companies. He is the recipient of two Iden Payne Awards and Critics Table awards for lighting in Austin.

Holly Highfill has designed sets for ballets, operas, and plays in the Washington area and throughout the country. She has been the principal scenic artist for most of these productions, and she has also painted scenery for numerous theater companies and scenery producers. In addition to theater work Ms Highfill has also done several large museum projects, designing and painting murals and other artwork for the National Air and Space Museum, the National Museum of the American Indian, the Audubon Society’s Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in Florida, and the Robinson Nature Center in Howard County, Maryland. Ms. Highfill has MFAs in Painting and Scenic Design from the University of Wisconsin and a BA in Art History from Bryn Mawr College. She is a member of United Scenic Artists Local 829 as a scene designer and scenic artist.

Judanna Lynn has designed costumes for most of the major dance companies in the United States including New York City Ballet, Milwaukee Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre and the Philadelphia Ballet.  Other credits include the costumes for Ballet de Santiago, Festival of the Lion King, for the opening of Disney’s Theme Park in Hong Kong; Houston Ballet’s highly acclaimed productions of Don Quixote, Dracula and Cleopatra; the musical Lyle for Charles Strouse; The Hartford Stage/Old Globe Theatre’s production of Tintypes; the musicals Once On This Island for the Children’s Theatre Company of Minneapolis, Hats! and Tin Pan Alley Rag for the Cleveland Playhouse.

Judanna formerly danced with San Francisco Opera Ballet and was a resident costume designer of The Juilliard School. She is also a painter whose work has been seen at the Rizzoli and Miniatura Galleries in New York City, the Philadelphia Museum of Fine Art and in private collections.

Known for his innovative and collaborative choreographic projects, Stephen Mills has created over 60 premieres for Ballet Austin and has works in the repertoires of companies across the United States and around the world.

His inaugural season as artistic director in 2000 attracted national attention with his world-premiere production of Hamlet, hailed by Dance Magazine as “… sleek and sophisticated.” The Washington Post recognized Ballet Austin as “one of the nation’s best kept ballet secrets” in 2004 after Mills’ world premiere of The Taming of the Shrew, commissioned by and performed at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. The Company’s first Kennedy Center invitation in January of 2002 was to perform Mills’ A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Ballet Austin presented a variety of Mills’ works at The Joyce Theater (NYC) in 2005 and returned to the Kennedy Center in collaboration with The Suzanne Farrell Ballet in 2008 and for the Ballet Across America Festival in 2013.

In 2005 after two years of extensive research, Mills led a communitywide human rights collaboration that culminated in the world premiere work Light / The Holocaust & Humanity Project (Light). In 2006 Light was awarded the Audrey & Raymond Maislin Humanitarian Award by the Anti-Defamation League. The work made its international debut in September 2013, with performances in three cities across Israel and is the subject of the award-winning documentary film, FINDING LIGHT. In October 2016, Mills led the company through a 16-city tour of the People’s Republic of China, concluding in China’s largest city, Shanghai.

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Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893)

Tchaikovsky was one of the most beloved composers of all time, especially known for creating magical music like The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, and The Sleeping Beauty.

Born in Russia in 1840, he started playing piano at age five. Although he first worked in government, his passion for music led him to study at the St. Petersburg Conservatory and become a teacher at the Moscow Conservatory.

Tchaikovsky’s beautiful melodies and emotional music made him famous around the world. He wrote over 160 pieces, including ballets, symphonies, and concertos that are still enjoyed today.

He passed away in 1893, but his music continues to delight audiences.