LOGAN – A familiar face and figure will headline the dancers in the upcoming performances of The Night Before Christmas by the local Ballet Aligned company.
That show, an original ballet benefitting the Little Lambs Foundation, will star Brianne Corbridge, a former dancer with the Cache Valley Civic Ballet.
“Corbridge is a Cache Valley native who grew up performing in Cache Valley Civic Ballet productions,” according to Lisa Preece, the owner of the Ballet Aligned studio here.
“Local audiences and ballet goers are likely to remember her in various leads in The Nutcracker and other productions like Sleeping Beauty, the Firebird and Dracula.”
Performances of The Night Before Christmas are slated for Dec. 2 and 3 at the Utah Theatre in downtown Logan. That show debuted in 2022 as a collaborative effort by Ballet Aligned and the Utah Festival Conservatory of the Performing Arts, the youth education arm of the Utah Festival Opera & Musical Theatre, and has since become a holiday tradition for local ballet aficionados.
Corbridge will dance the role of “Mama Moore in her kerchief” in the famous “Night Before Christmas” poem by Clement C. Moore upon which the benefit ballet is based and also perform the role of the Music Box Doll.
Every year since its debut, the role of Mama Moore in The Night Before Christmas has been performed by former students of Stephanie Casperson, the director of Ballet Aligned.
“It’s wonderful to bring my student back from wherever their ballet adventures have taken them,” Casperson says. “It lets them show our community – their own friends and family – the kinds of dancers they have become.”
After graduating from Green Canyon High School in 2020, Corbridge went on to pursue her dance education at the University of Utah, earning a bachelor of fine arts degree in ballet with an emphasis in teaching.
Casperson caught up with her former student last year when she performed with the Central Illinois Ballet, starring in their version of Cinderella.
“She was so lovely (in Cinderella),” Casperson recalls. “So, when she expressed uncertainty about remaining in Illinois, I offered her a position teaching with Ballet Aligned and performing the female leads in our productions.”
In the Night Before Christmas, Corbridge will dance opposite Quinn Culhane as Mr. Moore. Culhane is in training at the Ballet West Academy in Salt Lake City.
That pair will be joined on stage by Michael Ballam, the founder and general director of the Utah Festival Opera & Musical Theatre, who will narrate The Night Before Christmas for the third consecutive year. Also in the cast will be Jordan Todd Brown, a gifted clown and familiar face to audiences of the Pickleville Playhouse in Garden City.
Proceeds from the benefit performances of The Night Before Christmas are donated to the Little Lambs Foundation, which helps foster children with essential care items. Casperson says that more than $6,000 has been provided to that foundation since the ballet debuted in 2022.
Tickets for the performances of The Night Before Christmas at the Utah Theatre can be obtained by going online to https://balletbenefit.com
The Utah Theatre is located at 18 West Center Street in downtown Logan.