The published ledger behind the December run
San Francisco Ballet stages Nutcracker at the War Memorial Opera House from 4 to 27 December 2026. The company publishes its labour and material counts on a page titled Nutcracker by the Numbers, at sfballet.org/backstage/nutcracker-by-the-numbers/.
The ledger reads 1,200 pointe shoes used during Nutcracker season, 65 members of the Nutcracker orchestra, 3,700 hours volunteered by SF Ballet BRAVO members each season, and 30,500 free Nutcracker tickets or more distributed through the Children's Enchantment Fund since 1992.
Nineteen soldiers, eleven mice and the pit
One line carries the battle count: 19 soldiers plus the Nutcracker against 11 mice plus the King of the Mice. That totals 32 performers in the scene.
Two entries carry the physical build. The Stahlbaums' Christmas tree reaches 30 feet to the top after it grows. The wind-up ballerina's tutu holds 18 pounds of fabric.
The page publishes no total cast size, no per-performance crew figure and no payroll total.
The run shape behind the season
Thirty-five performances fall on 20 dates inside a 24-day window. Fifteen dates carry two performances. Five carry one, on 4, 8, 9, 10 and 15 December. Four carry none, on Monday 7, Monday 14, Monday 21 and Friday 25 December.
The curtain times split five ways: 15 performances at 7:00 pm, 13 at 2:00 pm, three at 6:00 pm, two at 11:00 am and two at 4:00 pm. Every performance runs 117 minutes, built from Act I at 47 minutes, a 20-minute intermission and Act II at 50 minutes.
A 7:00 pm curtain ends at 8:57 pm, and that is the latest finish in the run. The plan-your-visit page closes the lobby 30 minutes after the end of a performance and locks the doors at that point.
Three thousand seven hundred volunteer hours
The BRAVO corps logs 3,700 hours each Nutcracker season. The page publishes no shift pattern, no role list and no hourly value for those hours.
Thirty-seven hundred hours against 35 performances is about 106 hours a performance. The caption beside the entry names one BRAVO chaperone with San Francisco Ballet School students waiting to perform.
School students in the cast
Four of the six gallery captions on the production page name San Francisco Ballet School students in Tomasson's Nutcracker. One caption names a single student, and three name groups of students.
The company publishes no headcount of School students per performance and no share of the cast they hold. A front-of-house roster for the run carries an ushering and chaperone load that the production page leaves open.
The twenty-seventh of December
Sunday 27 December carries two performances, at 11:00 am and 4:00 pm. The 11:00 am performance is the Sensory Friendly Performance.
The production page describes that session as relaxed and welcoming for neurodiverse audiences of all ages and abilities, and it names first-time balletgoers and young children. The company navigation carries a Sensory Friendly and Adaptive Programs section.
The plan-your-visit page carries one line on house staffing: all front-of-house and backstage employees follow rigorous safety protocols. No adapted-staffing plan and no front-of-house headcount for 27 December are published.
What the record does not carry
No page reached gives an attendance figure, a paid-hours count, a hotel partner, a lodging line, a room block or a shuttle for the run. The production page returns no hit for hotel, lodging, block, shuttle or parking.
Single tickets went on sale on 5 October 2026, on the company's press release stamp. The staffing read rests on the published counts, and the organization publishes no payroll figure against them.