The Nutcracker is not one show. It is a score and a story that hundreds of companies stage in their own way, which is why the same title appears on this page attached to very different evenings out. A large classical company will bring a full orchestra, a corps of dancers and elaborate sets. A regional company or a ballet school may perform to a recording with a smaller cast. Neither is a lesser evening, but they are not interchangeable, and the company named on the listing is what tells you which one you are buying.
The shape of the piece is consistent almost everywhere. The first act is a Christmas party that turns strange after midnight, the second act is a sequence of shorter dances built around guests from different places, and the whole thing runs about two hours with an interval. Most of the music people recognise sits in the second half.
It is one of the few ballets that works for an audience with no ballet habit, children included, because the story is told through spectacle rather than through convention you need to know in advance. Companies often say the same thing about age: old enough to sit through two hours in the dark is the real requirement, not a number.
Where you sit matters more here than at a play. Ballet is read through whole bodies and through patterns made by groups of dancers, and both flatten out if you are too close and too low. Seats a little further back and slightly elevated give you the geometry of the corps, which is a large part of what the second act is doing. Front rows put you near the dancers but leave you looking up at a steep angle.
Productions in the run-up to Christmas sell through faster than the calendar suggests, and matinees fill first because of family audiences. PickStub is an independent marketplace and is not affiliated with any of the companies, theatres or orchestras staging this ballet.