Saint Louis Ballet: The Nutcracker

Saint Louis Ballet: The Nutcracker at Anheuser-Busch Performance Hall At Touhill Performing Arts Center

Two days before Christmas, the to-do list can swallow the whole season. Wrapping, cooking, errands, travel. So try a better plan: at 2:00 PM on December 23, 2026, set it all down and step into a fairy tale told through dance. Saint Louis Ballet brings The Nutcracker to the Anheuser-Busch Performance Hall at Touhill Performing Arts Center, and it could turn a hectic afternoon into the part of the holidays you remember longest.

This is Saint Louis Ballet's own Nutcracker, presented under Gen Horiuchi's production identity. That matters. You are not settling for a generic seasonal outing. You are seeing this company's version of a holiday journey, carried by Tchaikovsky's ballet music and told through movement instead of words. For anyone who loves the pull of a story, that is the appeal: emotion, imagination and performance meeting on one stage in St. Louis.

A matinee start also makes it easy to build a day around it. Gather family, invite a friend, or give someone a gift that is an experience instead of another box to unwrap. Years from now, people rarely recall what was under the tree. They remember where they sat together and what made them go quiet. If you want your holiday week to include a real theatre outing in St. Louis, reserve your seats for Saint Louis Ballet's Nutcracker here and give the season a performance worth leaving home for.