Pacific Northwest Ballet continues its 2025–26 season with the return of PNB founding artistic director Kent Stowell’s wondrous Cinderella. Last seen onstage at McCaw Hall in February 2020, PNB’s production conjures enchantment from this best-loved romantic fairy tale. As if stepping into the pages of a beloved story book, the ballet’s breathtaking costumes by Martin Pakledinaz and sets by Tony Straiges, in union with Prokofiev’s evocative score, vividly illustrate the familiar narrative and support a rich array of character roles, from silly stepsisters to tiny dancing pumpkins to a charming prince.
Kent Stowell’s Cinderella turns 32 in 2026. By the end of the current run, the ballet will have been performed 84 times in Seattle, and 14 times on tour (in Arizona, California, and Alberta, Canada). The production represented another example of Stowell’s reimagining of traditional story ballets, as he had done previously with Swan Lake (Seattle premiere, 1981), the Stowell/Sendak Nutcracker (1983), and The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet (1987). His Cinderella also shares with those other works Stowell’s creative reworking of the traditional musical score, and signature collaborations with notable designers.
Cinderella was costume designer Martin Pakledinaz’s first experience working with PNB. The elegance, charm, and wit of his costumes for this ballet (based on or alluding to late 18th century fashions) led to further commissions for PNB, most notably his 1997 costume and scenic designs for PNB’s brilliant production of Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Pakledinaz was aided immensely by Larae Theige Hascall, PNB’s long-time Costume Shop manager [retired in 2019, after 32 years], and her crew: 120 costumes, 25 hats, nearly three-dozen tiaras, and 30 wigs were created for Cinderella—and have been meticulously maintained by the Costume Shop over the past three decades.
Scenic designs by Tony Straiges reflect images of French art and architecture from the 16th to 18th centuries. Twelve scenic drops, painted by artists under the direction of PNB’s chief scenic artist Edie Whitsett, allude to a Versailles vista, the Loire Valley Château de Chenonceau, and paintings by Jean-Antoine Watteau. Randall “Rico” Chiarelli, PNB’s long-time lighting designer and technical director, described how Straiges originally wanted most of the drops printed by a computer—a process that Chiarelli noted was not only hideously expensive but produced drops that were lacking in a human spirit. After Chiarelli showed Straiges an example of what Whitsett and her artists could create, Straiges was convinced. (Chiarelli has noted that one of his favorite scenic drops in all his years at PNB is the Château de Chenonceau drop painted singlehandedly by Jan Harvey from a black and white photograph. According to Chiarelli, the consummate lighting designer, “the drop lights itself, I add nothing to it.”)
This emphasis on the human element mirrors the imagination and intention of choreographer Kent Stowell. He wanted the ballet’s focus to be on Cinderella: on the harmonious family that still lives in her memory; how she manages to cope with the dysfunctional family in which she now finds herself; and her dream of a love relationship inspired by the memory of her parents’ happy marriage. Even the characterization of the “ugly” stepsisters is a human one: Unlike Sir Frederick Ashton’s Royal Ballet production, upon which many others have been modelled, the stepsisters in PNB’s version are not played with broad, over-the-top comedy by men en travestie, but by women—unattractive in their meanness and condescension to Cinderella and ridiculous in their affectations, but human. And there may be a Fairy Godmother who can conjure up a magic carriage, dancing bugs, and clock children costumed as pumpkins, but she is danced by the same dancer who portrays Cinderella’s Memory Mother. The focus remains on the human scale of Cinderella’s story. The final pas de deux in the ballet is not a “grand pas” in the classic style, but a natural and unaffected dance for our heroine and her Prince. According to Kent Stowell, the concluding pas de deux “is a picture of the very best adult love. I think it’s what we all really want. It’s what we mean by ‘happily ever after.’”
This article is excerpted from a longer story by Sheila C. Dietrich, PNB Archivist. It is published here courtesy of Pacific Northwest Ballet.
Catch Kent Stowell’s Cinderella at Seattle’s McCaw Hall January 30–February 8 >>
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Featured Image: Pacific Northwest Ballet in Kent Stowell’s Cinderella. Photo © Angela Sterling.
Image 1: Louise Nadeau as Cinderella and Carrie Imler as the Fairy Godmother in Kent Stowell’s Cinderella. Photo © Angela Sterling.
