The magical Christmas tree wasn’t the only greenery growing at the Washington Ballet’s The Nutcracker in December. The company made $3.4 million in ticket revenue from 31 performances at the Warner Theatre—not counting its three shows at THEARC. 

To put it in perspective: That’s about $200,000 less than the production’s all-time high in 2022, but this winter’s run also included six fewer shows. 

For American ballet companies, annual Nutcracker showings make up much of the operating budget for the rest of the year. Reuters reported that the New York City Ballet, for instance, makes 45 percent of its annual ticket revenue from five weeks of The Nutcracker. Dance/USA estimates that Nutcracker productions, in turn, can count for about 15 percent of a company’s total revenue, not just tickets. 

TWB historically operates on a $12 million annual budget with about $3 to $4 million from ticket sales for the whole year—not just from The Nutcracker. 

The windfall, especially for a less intensive run that didn’t drain the artists and production staff, is a big win for a company in transition. Last summer, a quarter of TWB’s roster left or retired after then-artistic director Julie Kent departed for Houston Ballet. 

The money matters, but for Christopher Anderson, the company’s chief marketing officer, what matters more are the signals that the company’s efforts to grow its audience beyond ballet fanatics might be working.

“We’ve gone into spaces that we haven’t traditionally lived in and said, ‘You are a part of our community,’” Anderson tells City Paper. 

For The Nutcracker that meant, for example, running Spanish-language advertisements and partnering with 97.1 WASH-FM—not a classical music station—to promote the show. The company also invited a local high school choir competition winner to sing before a show, which brought in a new audience segment to the ballet. 

One thing TWB didn’t do, Anderson says, was dynamic ticket pricing, where prices increase when demand is high. To sell tickets, TWB partners with Live Nation, which merged with Ticketmaster in 2010. Both were investigated by the Senate Judiciary Committee last year for monopolizing the entertainment industry. But Anderson says overcharging is against the company’s mission. 

“A Nutcracker keeps the lights on, but we try to temper that with the fact that we’ve got a broader audience to reach,” he says. 

The company hopes to translate this success into the rest of its 2023-2024 season and onward into the next, when Edwaard Liang joins the company as its fourth artistic director. Liang, who is currently closing out the season BalletMet in Columbus, Ohio, where he has been artistic director for about a decade, is expected to arrive in D.C. this spring. 

The Washington Ballet’s next production, Jazz Icons: A Fine Romance, premieres on Feb. 14 and runs through the 18th at the Kennedy Center. kennedy-center.org. $30–$175.