The Slutcracker is the brainchild of Boston-based burlesque star Vanessa White (aka Sugar Dish) who also choreographs and directs the production. Everything is, as one might imagine, updated to be Hotter and Sexier. Some names are tweaked and the relationships between characters are changed, but the scenes and basic narrative is the same. The production is a growing holiday season hit in Boston and features both ballet and burlesque. The cast is mostly made up of professional dancers but also features character actors and hula-hoopers.
The story is this: modern-day Clara and her boyfriend Fritz (not her brother in this version) are throwing a Christmas party. Before the guests start arriving, Fritz proposes to Clara and she is delighted. The guests start showing up and all is going well before Drosselmeyer (a mother/grandmother/godmother hybrid) arrives and presents Clara with a controversial gift: a big purple vibrator. Fritz is upset as Drosselmeyer antagonizes him with it, but eventually Clara gets everyone to settle down and the party ends. Then, later that night, Drosselmeyer returns and reveals the purple vibrator to be the Slutcracker Prince (or Princess depending on the cast) and Clara is whisked off into a sexual fantasia including bondage ballerinas, a tassel-twirling Waltz of the Flowers and Bacchanalia Fluffers.
The Slutcracker features some beautiful choreography and naturally mixes in a lot of sex comedy. The cast usually has performers who are also members of other burlesque troupes and, as such, have burlesque stage names.There is also a companion book called Twas the Night Before Slutcracker.
Tropes that can be found in The Slutcracker include:
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Fritz is now Clara's boyfriend instead of her brother...and he's got good reason to be jealous of that big ol' purple vibrator that Drosselmeyer gives her for Christmas.
- Bawdy Song: Bawdy dance to be more accurate.
- Brother–Sister Incest: Averted. Clara and Fritz aren't related at all in this production.
- Dirty Old Woman: Drosselmeyer as she gives Clara a sex toy for Christmas.
- Dominatrix: There are three bondage ballerinas that dance with bull-whips. Later, one of them leads a hunky-looking gimp around by a leash.
- Fanservice Extra: Everywhere thanks to the very revealing costumes.
- French Maid: Two of them pick up the clothes taken off in between dances in the second act.
- Gag Penis: The vibrator. And then it comes alive and dances around...
- Gender Flip: Some productions change the Slutcracker Prince to a Slutcracker Princess.
- Hotter and Sexier: In pretty much every possible way. There is virtually no missed opportunity for this.
- The Sugar Dish Fairy starts off as a ballerina in a black vinyl tu-tu number and then pieces of it start coming off...
- Immodest Orgasm: In the most recent production there's an entire dance replete with hula hoops with blinking lights to illustrate Clara's big orgasm at the end of act one.
- Living Aphrodisiac: Everyone. Seriously, everyone.
- Modesty Bedsheet: Totally averted. None to be found!
- Ms. Fanservice: Pretty much everyone, but especially Clara and the Sugar Dish Fairy.
- Nipple and Dimed: You never see any female nipples, but in the classic tradition of burlesque it's because the ladies (and some of the men) are wearing pasties.
- Opera Gloves: The lead dancer in the Waltz of the Flowers has a pair of hot pink ones.
- Pretty in Mink: Though likely faux, Drosselmeyer has a green cape trimmed with white fur in the most recent production.
- The Pornomancer: Clara.
