- 57 people work backstage to coordinate the scenery, lighting, and costumes during each performance.

- 150 costumes appear onstage in each performance.- Between 600 and 700 lighting instruments are used in the stage lighting for the production. The Sugarplum Fairy's tutu is made of 7 layers of tulle.- The giant Christmas tree grows to a full height of 41 feet and weighs 1 ton. The Dewdrop costume is adorned with 65 crystal "dewdrops."- 62 musicians play in the orchestra for each performance.- Mother Ginger's skirt is supported by a 40-pound metal frame. Tschaikovsky based the music for the Coffee dance on the melody of a Georgian lullaby.- Approximately 50 pounds of paper confetti fall onto the stage to create the snowstorm.- There are 144 jingle bells on each of the Candy Cane costumes. Most of the scenery in the production is actually painted fabric.- The special instrument played for the Sugarplum Fairy's solo is a celesta.- The only costumes still in use from the original 1954 production are the Grandmother's cape and the embroidered appliqués on the women's costumes in the Tea dance.- The music for the violin solo during the change of scenery in Act I is actually taken from Tschaikovsky's score for the ballet The Sleeping Beauty.- The bodices of the dresses worn by the women in the Hot Chocolate dance are decorated with small cameo pictures of New York City Ballet Founders Lincoln Kirstein (on the soloists) and George Balanchine (on the corps de ballet dancers).- The Nutcracker first premiered on December 17, 1892, at the Maryinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia.- Tschaikovsky used the newly-invented celesta to make the music for the Sugarplum Fairy sound like the "sprays of a fountain" as the choreographer Marius Petipa requested.- At its premiere in Russia in 1892, The Nutcracker was considered a failure by the public and critics. Tschaikovsky died less than a year later, not knowing what a huge international success the ballet would later become.