Adam Schnell has a tough nut to crack. Along with immense creative effort and daunting logistics, he needs to raise $300,000 if the vision of a new, locally based, professionally danced version of “The Nutcracker” becomes part of the Ballet Vero Beach repertoire next year.
Already he has raised $65,000 in private donations, and if state lawmakers vote his way, a $25,000 state grant. Two weeks ago, Schnell raised another $20,000 to $25,000 at a golf and fashion show benefit, Tea Up for The Nutcracker.
Sunday afternoon, he’s hoping to net another $20,000 at the $125-a-head Gold Watch Gala, the high point of which is the final performance of a student Nutcracker he created seven years ago. “The Nutcracker: In Swingtime!”, an annual tradition at Riverside Children’s Theatre, is being shelved next year as Schnell’s professional ballet company, Ballet Vero Beach, premieres “The Nutcracker on the Indian River.” That full-scale production, choreographed by Schnell, will include a cast of 21 professional ballet dancers, 35 to 40 children, and elaborate original costumes and sets already in production.
That $300,000 investment should ensure at least a decade of performances, Schell says, and with luck could include regional tours.
Vero’s ballet fans have come to believe in Schnell, whose wishes can seem as fantastical as a little girl’s Nutcracker coming to life.
It was four years ago that Schnell founded a ballet company in a town that had never believed in ballet before. Ballet Vero Beach uses professional dancers from its sister company, Ballet Nebraska, setting its own, often original choreography, and investing in sets and costumes.
In his master plan for the company’s fifth year: a professional production of “The Nutcracker.” Having the company do a “Nutcracker” could give it a revenue stream few other works could generate. The annual Christmas tradition flourishes in so many cities for that very reason: Christmas-time audiences flock to the family show. “A ‘Nutcracker’ can be a game-changer,” says Schnell.
The 2017 production of “The Nutcracker on the Indian River” will involve Ballet Vero Beach’s biggest professional cast yet. But it is the children who make the show a guaranteed community success, each year introducing dozens of kids to ballet, and hundreds more in the audience.
“I got into ballet because of ‘The Nutcracker,’” says Schnell, who at 10 played Fritz, Clara’s annoying brother. He went on to major in ballet at the highly selective Walnut Hill School for the Arts in Massachusetts, and after dancing professionally including for Omaha Theatre Ballet and Sarasota Ballet, moved back to Vero Beach where his parents, Michael and Joan Schnell, have lived for many years.
It was when he first starting work on his 2014 master’s in arts administration that the idea for a Vero-based “Nutcracker” began to take shape. “My first project in grad school was a ‘Nutcracker on the Indian River.’ I’ve always had an idea of creating a dance based on how beautiful it is here.”
Meanwhile, he had begun teaching dance at Riverside Children’s Theatre. “The Nutcracker: In Swingtime!” had debuted in 2010, just a year after Schnell’s arrival. That year he had enough kids for one cast. But the show was a sellout before the first performance. The very next year, the ranks swelled to two casts of almost 60 each, including eight boys. Nearly a third of the cast had come back for a second go – including the girl who danced Clara, Megan Callahan. This time, she danced the imperious Mouse Queen – in a costume that included huge mouse ears and brought the house down.
Costume designer Travis Halsey was responsible for those mouse ears. Now, he will be designing a whole new crop of costumes for Schnell’s new professional production, “The Nutcracker on the Indian River.”
At Sunday’s gala, the dancers won’t all be children as they normally are. Three student dancers from the first years of the ballet are returning to the stage, morphed into adults like the toy Nutcracker at the center of the story. Patrick Schlitt, a sophomore studying public relations at the University of Tampa, was in Riverside’s ballet program for many years and has continued to perform in dance and theater in college. He will perform en travesti as the Evil Headmistress, who later turns into the Mouse Queen.
“Patrick was the first male dancer to play the Mouse Queen, and people couldn’t believe it was him,” says Schnell. “For the gala, I’ve encouraged him to be even more over-the-top.”
Shannon Maloney, now a teacher of dance at Riverside Children’s Theatre, was for years among Schnell’s most promising students. She won apprentice positions with each of the professional companies Schnell brought in for Riverside’s summer dance intensives. Maloney also gave a stunning performance in a Ballet Vero Beach performance at the Vero Beach Museum of Art. Talented as she is as a dancer, Schnell believes it was mentoring the youngest cast members of “Nutcracker” that led Maloney to discover her first love is working with the youngest children, now her niche at Riverside.
Megan Taylor Callahan, a standout senior at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, is not only a remarkable dancer, she acts and directs. Last summer she directed the summer theater camp at Vero Beach High School, and for the past two years has returned to Vero to direct the high school’s Summerstage performance.
Callahan was the first Clara in “The Nutcracker: In Swingtime!” On Sunday she will reprise that role, but this time, she’ll be opposite Schnell, her longtime instructor.
The gala marks a big moment for Schnell himself. As the Telegram Boy/Nutcracker, he will be taking the stage for the first time in eight years, and the first time ever in Vero Beach.
“Getting to dance with Megan has been not so much about the steps as that I’ve rarely come across a performer that is so completely engaged in the scene,” says Schnell. “From the very first rehearsal, she locked eyes with me. Every single time we’ve rehearsed, it’s like there’s no one else in our show.”
“I’m so happy to see these alumni and know what they’re doing in their lives,” says Schnell. “To know that the 40 cast members in this show have that same potential. You have to figure that over the years, that’s been the case for about 150 kids through this production.
“I can honestly say I may break down in tears at the end of this show,” says Schnell. “It’s become a huge part of our lives every fall to audition and rehearse and perform this for seven years.”
And, like the post-production treats donated by the popular Vero bakery, Patisserie, this year’s gala will include a confection on stage: Ballet Vero Beach’s ballet master Camilo Rodriguez dancing Duke Ellington’s take on the Sugar Plum Fairy – the Sugar Rum Cherry.
The show takes place at 1:30 p.m. Sunday at the Anne Morton stage within Riverside Children’s Theatre.
The regular student performances of “The Nutcracker: In Swingtime!” take place Friday and Saturday at 1:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.