Carolina Ballet is preparing to present the company’s fifth production of the holiday family classic “Nutcracker,” sponsored by Progress Energy, at Raleigh Memorial Auditorium of the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts.

There will be 16 performances during the Thanksgiving-Christmas holiday season in the following schedule: Friday, Nov. 25, Sunday, Nov. 27, Thursday, Dec. 22, and Friday, Dec. 23, at 2 p.m.; Saturday, Nov. 26, at 12:30 and 4:30 p.m.; Friday, Dec. 16, Tuesday, Dec. 20, and Wednesday, Dec. 21, at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, Dec. 17, at 11:30 a.m., 3:30 and 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, Dec. 18, at 12:30 and 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 22, and Friday, Dec. 23, at 7:30 p.m.

Although the curtain doesn’t go up on “Nutcracker” until Nov. 25, Carolina Ballet has been working on the production since the weekend following Labor Day in September. It was then that more than 200 children auditioned for parts as soldiers, mice, gingerbread cookies, truffles, party scene children and, of course, the role of Clara, every little girl’s dream. This year children came from as far away as Morehead City and New Bern to try out for the production, as well as from Knightdale, Holly Springs, Fuquay-Varina, Cary, Durham, Chapel Hill and Raleigh.

“It is an enormous commitment,” says Artistic Director Robert Weiss, “and we are very grateful to all the parents who are willing to give up so much of their own time to let their children be in Carolina Ballet’s professional production.”

Weiss premiered his new choreography for “Nutcracker” to Tchaikovsky’s well-known score in December 2001. The scenery for “Nutcracker” was designed by Jeff A.R. Jones and built by Alternate Route Studios. This includes the Christmas tree that grows 28 feet to the top of the stage and the magnificent Land of Sweets of Act II that looks good enough to eat. There is even real snow (from the Snow Master T-1000) that turns the end of the first act into a glorious winter wonderland.

Judanna Lynn designed the costumes and David Heuvel, costume production director at Ballet West, coordinated the five costume shops around the country and in England that made those costumes and the animal heads a reality. Much of the work on the costumes was done by hand down to the sewing of 51 buttons on each of the 20 soldier costumes — 1020 buttons in all!

Carolina Ballet’s “Nutcracker” is performed to live music with Alfred E. Sturgis, music director, conducting.

Weiss likes to tell the story of going to his first “Nutcracker” at New York City Ballet when he was five years old. He says it was a life-changing experience for him because it was at that time that he decided that he wanted to grow to be in the ballet. He had to wait until he was eight, though, before he could be in “Nutcracker,” and he says that until he was taken into the New York City Ballet company at age 16 he performed every role for a young boy in “Nutcracker.” Even today he says “no matter how many times I see ‘Nutcracker,’ I always get that tingle up my spine when the curtain goes up.”