What is your favorite holiday memory? 

Patric: Christmas Eve with my grandparents. My grandma used to make homemade caramels—and she would individually wrap each one. She was very, very precise about it, and they were the BEST. We would eat those and decorate the tree.

What is your first Nutcracker experience?

P: My first-ever experience was here in Boston. My mom took me and my siblings to see it when I was very small. But I didn’t grow up going to ballet school, so I have not been doing Nutcracker since I was little like most other dancers. My first time performing [The Nutcracker], I was 18 as a second company member in Orlando Ballet. There I was learning Russian and mouse.

What parts are you learning for The Nutcracker?

P: A whole lot! Nutcracker Prince, both the side Russian and the lead Russian, Pastorale, Chinese, Harlequin, and I think one of the parents.

What do you expect to be different and new about performing in Mikko Nissinen’s The Nutcracker?

P: This Nutcracker has both story-time children’s holiday magic and full-fledged classical ballet.

How do you prepare for a performance the day of?

P: I eat lots of pasta around 2 pm. I go find an Italian restaurant and really carbo-load on some Alfredo and then try really hard not to nap around 4 pm. It’s my only excuse to eat a lot of bread.

What do you want audiences to take away from your performances?

P: I usually just try to think about presenting [a work] to the best of my ability. I can’t control what an audience member takes away, so the best I can do is put forth a valiant effort and hope that they notice and appreciate that. If there’s anything that I want them to take away, it’s that ballet is exciting and it’s not just for little girls! Ballet is more than tutus and pointe shoes.

I think that Nutcracker is the first time a lot of children—both boys and girls—experience ballet. Does that come into play for you at all?

P: In this Nutcracker, there are a lot of boys dancing. It’s about the whole company. Boys in ballet do more than walk girls around the stage now! And that’s exciting.