Review: ‘Sugar Hill: The Ellington / Strayhorn Nutcracker’ at the Auditorium Theatre is a joyful, jazzy reinvention

The Auditorium Theatre lost its holiday staple when the Joffrey Ballet moved to the Lyric Opera House in 2021. But that beautiful, gold-trimmed venue in the Loop may have a new winner with “Sugar Hill,” a brand-new “Nutcracker” ballet with a glitzy twist.

Jazz masters Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn broke barriers with their 1960 interpretation of Tchaikovsky’s 1892 “Nutcracker Suite.” Enter “Sugar Hill,” Tony Award-winning producers David Garfinkle and Ron Simons’ attempt to capture that same genre-defying magic-making by fitting the sweet Ellington / Strayhorn suite over a new libretto from author Jessica Swan.

“Sugar Hill: The Ellington / Strayhorn Nutcracker” runs through Dec. 30 at the Auditorium Theatre.

The original “Nutcracker” ballet is based on E.T.A. Hoffmann’s 1816 short story, “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King.” And those who know “The Nutcracker” will find clever parallels between “Sugar Hill” and the popular ballet: An imaginative young girl (named Lena Stall, riffing off the Stahlbaum family’s surname in the traditional ballet) gets a special doll at her family’s holiday party, falls asleep and is whisked away to the magical land of her dreams, battling a gaggle of mice and a snowstorm along the way. Swan moves Lena, her nutcracker and an international troupe of fantastical figures from a 19th century German living room to 1930s New York.

Rather than a candy-coated Kingdom of the Sweets, Lena’s dreamland is Sugar Hill, the storied Manhattan neighborhood that flourished in the ‘30s — its notable residents including W.E.B. Du Bois, Thurgood Marshall, Cab Calloway and, fittingly, Duke Ellington. Her prince (danced Thursday by Jinhao Zhang) is a dispirited jazz musician who finds his passion again as a passenger on Lena’s journey.

Those who know Ellington and Strayhorn will be whisked away, too. Conductor and pianist Harold O’Neal leads a terrific big band through their “Nutcracker,” supplemented by more than 20 additional selections from the two composers’ catalogs. Rather than relegate them to the orchestra pit, the band gobbles up nearly half the Auditorium Theatre’s stage on a platform behind the dancers — as they should.

Lena (danced Thursday by Alicia Mae Holloway from Dance Theatre of Harlem) sneaks out of her affluent parents’ Upper West Side home and “Takes the A Train” to Harlem — thanks to an angelic jazz singer Jennifer Jade Ledesna voicing Billy Strayhorn’s most popular tune. Lena finds herself in a jazz club, plunged into an intoxicating world of music and dance at the height of the Harlem Renaissance. It’s here that “Sugar Hill’s” magic gets turned all the way up.

Director and choreographer Joshua Bergasse (who won an Emmy for NBC’s “Smash”) recruited additional moves from Jon Boogz, Jade Hale-Christofi and Caleb Teicher. It all comes together in a Savoy-like scene that morphs into a battle with beer-bellied rats resembling some ruffians Lena encountered en route to Harlem, and through a foggy snowstorm on her way to the treetops above Lenox Avenue for some light entertainment from a carnival of dancing animals.

There’s ballet over here and Lindy Hop over there; ballroom in this corner and acrobatics in that corner; tap dancing on cafe tables and popping on the subway. It’s a lot to ask of this star-studded cast, most of whom are multihyphenates supremely capable of becoming Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers in one moment, and Frankie Manning and Norma Miller in the next.

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This brand-new production appears to still be working through some kinks and wonky transitions. Pieces of Swan’s winding tale don’t fully translate on stage. And despite its apparent opulence, the show’s trappings are quite simple and scrappy — leaning on its impressive lighting design (Christopher Annas-Lee), glamorous costumes (David Kaley), solid dancing and that incredible band to fill it out. “Sugar Hill” was originally scheduled to open in New York last month but never did, saving its world premiere for Chicago, then canceling several shows, consolidating an already limited run. It seems these Broadway producers are finding dance a difficult market. We could have told you that, but “Sugar Hill” has so much to admire, as a full Auditorium Theatre audience made clear Thursday night. And it’s worth fighting for.

Lauren Warnecke is a freelance critic.

Review: “Sugar Hill: The Ellington / Strayhorn Nutcracker” (3 stars)

When: Through 2 p.m. Dec. 30

Where: Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Ida B. Wells Pkwy.

Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes with an intermission

Tickets: $52-$100 at 312-341-2300 and auditoriumtheatre.org