INSIDE LOOK: The magic of bringing Nutcracker to life at the Straz Center in Tampa

Get ready to be dazzled at The Straz Center for the Performing Arts in Tampa as the dancers from Next Generation Ballet® (NGB), Patel Conservatory‘s pre-professional dance troupe, take the stage alongside young dancers and special guest dancers from the New York City Ballet.

Nutcracker returns to the Straz Center  December 19-23, 2025, in Carol Morsani Hall with an enchanting production that has been months in the making.

What makes this performance even more special is the passion and dedication of those who bring it to life. It's not just about creating forever memories for you in the audience; it's setting the stage for young dancers as they embark on their journeys to a career in dance.

And this year, a new leader is taking center stage with the Next Generation Ballet®, and his eyes are set on the future of dance. NGB’s new artistic director, Antonio Douthit-Boyd, who also serves as the chair of the dance department of the Patel Conservatory.

He joined the team in August from COCA (Center of Creative Arts) in St. Louis, where he got his start as a dancer. While he’s only been in the role for a few months, you can already catch a glimpse of his influence when you experience the Next Generation Ballet’s Nutcracker at the Straz Center this month.

We recently sat down with Douthit-Boyd to learn more about his vision for the future, the importance of dance, and the magic he has in store for us with this year’s NGB Nutcracker.

TBPM: First, let’s talk about how you’re adding your own spin to Nutcracker. You’ve only had a few months to work with a cast of 200 kids in all six of the shows!

ADB: I wanted to keep things neutral for our audience because it's a change. But I think you're going to see a huge difference in the physicality and the technique of the dancers this year.

I call myself the mutt of dance. I've danced as a soloist with the Dance Theater of Harlem, purely classical ballet, and for 12 years as a principal artist with Alvin Ailey. So my training and all my dancing has been “change this hat, put that hat on.”

I'm trying to instill in the students here that we can't just call ourselves ballet dancers anymore because the world of ballet is changing rapidly. No ballet company is just doing the classics. You have to have the contemporary works. You have to have the choreographers of the now in your repertoire and the mixed field program. So I'm challenging them to move quicker, move faster.

TBPM: Can you share a little peek at what your vision is for next year’s Nutcracker?

ADB: It's the Nutcracker, so the tradition and the storyline will never change, but I do have some more things up my sleeve for next season. Inside scoop: I'm thinking of bringing more central Tampa themes to our version. When I got here, the first thing people said was, “Gasparilla, oh my God, you're going to love Gasparilla.” I was like, so why are our Russian dancers not pirates?

TBPM: Great teaser! We can't wait. This year, you have guest dancers from the New York City Ballet who will be performing the roles of Sugar Plum Fairy and Cavalier. How do you think it impacts young dancers when they get the chance to share the stage with these professional dancers?

ADB: It's another layer of the training, right? You have two principal artists from the New York City Ballet to inspire you, to uplift you, to show you that there is a pathway once you leave your training ground to become these people. We're very fortunate to be able to bring them in. You're in for a treat.

TBPM: The Next Generation Ballet’s Nutcracker is as close to professional as you can get.

ADB: We have some of the best top-tier pre-professional dancers in the country. Our dancers work so hard and so tirelessly. Some of them have five or six roles in the ballet. So, no, this is not a community art center or a regional production of Nutcracker. This is top tier, and the dancers are working so hard to keep it at that level.

TBPM: That level of professionalism is happening behind the scenes, too, right?

ADB: It's a professional production. We have a union house. What school of dance has a union house for all of its productions? It's unbelievable. And I think the kids realize the privilege that they have, and they live up to it, and they rise to the occasion.

TBPM: What inspired you to become a dancer?

ADB: I came from a single-parent home in St. Louis. Sports were not my thing. I was very big in high school and middle school. I was kind of an outcast, and then one day I found ballet. I just stumbled into a dance class — there is a long story that goes with that, but there was a woman named Indigo Sams who took me in because my mother was very against a Black boy doing ballet.

In North St. Louis, it was very taboo, so she was like, “Tell people you tap dance; tell people you do anything but ballet.” She never came around to, okay, this is your passion, you want to do this … but Indigo Sam took me in. I lived with her for years, and she took me to all my college auditions. To this day, she's still my number one champion.

So I feel like it's giving back to the community, whether it's in St. Louis or here in Tampa, bridging the gap between the two cities, it's my calling.

TBPM: Did you ever imagine you would one day become an artistic director of a dance department like the Patel Conservatory?

ADB: I don’t think I could have ever imagined being in this position right now. I dreamed big. I dreamed of being Alvin Ailey, I dreamed of being a huge ballet star, and those things came to pass. But when the opportunity came for me to take over the school in St. Louis with my husband in 2015, I was like, “Oh, do I want to be a director? I'm not done with the stage,” but there was a moment of, “Oh my God, if you can make an impact on one kid's life, you have changed this person's life forever.”

I think being an artistic director is one of the hardest jobs. You're not only in charge of the programming — making sure the dancers look the way they look, making sure that physicality is where it needs to be, making sure the audience has a great experience —you’re curating an entire vibe for everyone. And so you're always on your toes as an artistic director, which I love.

TBPM: It has to be a pretty amazing experience for the young performers to experience the new challenges and become more well-rounded dancers.

ADB: There’s not one company that I can think of that has not moved into this next genre of where dance is going. Dance has evolved so much. You’re going to still see your Sleeping Beauties and your Swan Lakes, but you have choreographers like David Dawson reimagining what Sleeping Beauty looks like, what Swan Lake looks like, and it's a contemporary take on them. I'm just trying to make sure that our dancers are ready for whatever is out in the field, and they have been like sponges since August.

They have soaked it in, they believe in it, and that's the hardest part: to get kids to trust you. It's so hard, and I can feel the love there, so I think that's the key thing that people are going to take away, like they're moving faster, they're turning more, they're thinking a little bit quicker.

And the team, I can't leave this interview without talking about my team here. Miss Yvonne, Ms. Claire, Ms. Giselle, Ms. Gabby — I have some of the best partnerships here at Next Generation and the Patel. So I'm super, super jazzed for years to come.

TBPM: Why would you encourage parents to sign their kids up for a dance class, or even themselves?

ADB: It is so transformative. I think for a young boy like me, ballet was such a pivotal turn in my adolescence. I think everyone should take a dance class, whether you're 3 years old, 8 years old, or 90 years old. It keeps the brain moving very fast. It keeps you thinking.

I think dance is healing. And right now, our world needs some healing. So even if dance is not your thing, just go watch a dance performance. See our Nutcracker, Dec. 19 through 23. It just takes you away from everyday struggles, worries and confusion for just 90 minutes. And it brings curiosity and wonder to your life. I think everyone should witness it at some point.

TBPM: There are so many other benefits of dancing, too.

ADB: I find that dancers are some of the brightest human beings on the planet. So, say dance was not for you and you became an open-heart surgeon. I would rather that former dancer work on me because they’re going to problem-solve. They’re critical thinkers and problem solvers, which is why I think everyone should try to take dance or some kind of art form so that they can start thinking critically.

At any age, the door is open for all to enjoy and to witness. You don't have to be a fantastic dancer; that's why we're here to make you a fantastic dancer. So you have to get in the door, and once they're in the door, I think they get hooked.

Feeling inspired? Learn more about the dance, theater, and music classes for kids and adults at Patel Conservatory by visiting strazcenter.org

Next Generation Ballet will perform “Nutcracker” Dec. 19-23, 2026, in Carol Morsani Hall at the Straz Center. Tickets start at $21.25. For tickets and information about special opportunities for groups of 10 or more, contact the Ticket Sale Office at (813) 229-7827 or visit strazcenter.org. 

Fun Facts About Nutcracker and Next Generation Ballet:

(Words provided by The Straz Center.)

• The original working titles for “The Nutcracker” were “The Christmas Tree” and “The Fir Tree.” NGB’s production goes just by “Nutcracker.”
• The ballet took 42 years to migrate from Russia, first being performed in England in 1934. In the United States, it was first performed in 1944 by the San Francisco Opera Ballet. It took another 10 years to get to New York City where it became a full-on American holiday tradition after George Balanchine choreographed it in 1954. In Tampa, Next Generation Ballet and earlier iterations of the company have performed “Nutcracker” for more than 15 years.
• Depending on where you are, Clara may not be the name of the heroine. There were two versions of the original story, “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” by E.T.A. Hoffmann and “The Nutcracker of Nuremberg.” In these stories, the heroine is known as Maria or Marie, and her doll was named Clara.
• Tchaikovsky thought this work was “infinitely poorer” than his score for “Sleeping Beauty.” “The Nutcracker” was the last of the three ballets he composed for – the first being Swan Lake. Next Generation Ballet has performed all three of these ballets at The Straz over the years!
• A newly invented musical instrument of the time, the celesta, is the twinkling sound you hear in “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.” Tchaikovsky found the piano hybrid with a bell-like tone while in Paris and smuggled it to Russia to create the character’s unique musical accompaniment, which has been described as sounding like sprays of a fountain.
• Each year, NGB Artistic Director, Philip Neal adds in a new element to the show – from a live choir during the snow scene to flamenco choreography during the Spanish divertissement. New this year, the youngest dancers ever will be involved in Nutcracker as Baby Mice during the battle scene.
• The Nutcracker musical suite has made some notable appearances in pop culture as well, in as varied a range of productions as Disney’s Fantasia (1940), a 1954 holiday episode of General Electric Theater hosted by then-actor Ronald Reagan, and several video games including Lemmings, Yoshi’s Story, and 2007’s Bioshock.
• In 2018, Misty Copeland, the first African-American female principal dancer in American Ballet Theatre’s history, performed as Ballerina Princess in the Disney film, “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms,” a retelling of Hoffmann’s original story.

*Presented by the Straz Center for the Performing Arts | Originally published in the December 2025 issue of Tampa Bay Parenting Magazine.