The Chicago Jewish Nutcracker

Adina Stuhlman, in blue and white as the Chanukah Fairy, and the rest of her cast for their 2024 ballet performance of The Jewish Nutcracker. (Photo courtesy of Adina Stuhlmam)

A Jewish Nutcracker? How is that possible? 

“It goes back to when I was a kid,” explained Adina Stuhlman, Artistic Director and Choreographer of The Jewish Nutcracker ballet, which will premiere this December, over Chanukah, at The Edge Theater in Edgewater.  

As a child, Stuhlman danced in the classic version with her local ballet studio in West Rogers Park—and loved it. It was both her first exposure to the story as well as her first time being in a real ballet. “Even though it was Christmas[-themed] and I’m Jewish, it was an amazing experience and opportunity,” Stuhlman said. 

Later, while studying dance at Ball State University, Stuhlman asked herself thought, “Has anyone ever done a Jewish version?” Instead of Christmas, she thought the ballet The Nutcracker could tell the story of Chanukah. 

But she tabled the idea until two years ago when Stuhlman’s grandmother, Beverly Fayge Stuhlman, moved from Texas to Park Plaza Senior Living in Chicago. Fayge kept asking her granddaughter to come and perform. “If I’m going to perform, it’s going to be my Jewish Nutcracker,” she decided.  

She cut the show down to a 30-minute production with a cast of eight people, including herself. At the end of 2024, they performed in Park Plaza’s multi-purpose room, and Stuhlman’s grandmother was even able to participate by reading an introduction.  

“She loved it,” Stuhlman recalled. “And it is special because it was the last performance she saw me do before she passed away last May.” 

Describing her grandmother as having set it all in motion for her, Stuhlman was determined to make a full, original production of The Jewish Nutcracker happen this year. She wanted it to be a “legit” show in a theater, and was pleased to find a space well set up for her needs, with a connection to the backstage, and wings at the side for the cast—adult amateur dancers—to hide off-stage or to run on and off.  

In order to reserve the theater, she needed a name for her dance company, and so Absoluta Chicago Dance Company was born. The name was inspired by the word “absolute.” “I really liked how [it means] having no restriction, exception, or qualification,” Stuhlman said. “It had a lot of meanings that resonated with the idea of having an adult amateur dance company.”  

“And then I made it sound fancy with the ‘a’ at the end,” she added with a laugh. 

In The Jewish Nutcracker, Tchaikovsky’s iconic music remains the same, but the cast of characters has changed, as have the settings and story. There is no Sugar Plum Fairy, but rather a Chanukah Fairy. Clara is Miriam, Fritz is Frankl, and Drosselmeyer is Dr. Sal Meyer. The Nutcracker Prince will turn not into a Prince but into Judah Maccabee. The Christmas party scene is instead, of course, a Chanukah party—complete with candles and latkes and a giant, growing menorah.  

“It’s going to be a mix of human dancers and a giant menorah,” Stuhlman conceded, “because actually making a menorah grow is very difficult.” 

Stuhlman, who also studied dance in Israel at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, feels that the production is the perfect merger of her “dance-ness” and her Jewishness. For her, connecting with Chanukah is a great way to celebrate her Jewishness while also being a dancer. 

“I’d much rather be in the dance studio than in a synagogue,” Stuhlman shared. “Dancing is my way of connecting with G-d. And I would never put that on my dancers—we’re not a religious group. But for me, I always [feel] closer and more connected being in the dance studio.” 

The Jewish Nutcracker will be performed Dec. 5 and 6 at The Edge Theater, 5451 N. Broadway, in Edgewater. For tickets, visit tinyurl.com/TheJewishNutcracker.