New York City Ballet principal dancer Tiler Peck takes us through her entire routine as the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker. As she gets ready for the iconic third movement in the pas de deux, Tiler puts on her full stage makeup, secures the crown on top of her elaborate bun, gets dressed into her glamorous tutu, and preps her shoes to take the stage.
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00:00Just make sure everything looks very even, so I always put some, what do you call this
00:13Grace?
00:14That's my powder.
00:15Hi Allure, I'm Tyler Peck, get ready with me for my performance as the Sugar Plum Fairy
00:21and the Nutcracker.
00:34This is my 20th year in the company, so I've pretty much done all of the roles.
00:38So the Sugar Plum Fairy is like the queen of the land of the sweets, which is basically
00:44what everybody comes to in Act 2.
00:47So for typical stage makeup, we need a lot of foundation, so we wear a grease.
00:52When we get like our makeup tutorial when we very first get into the company, they call
00:55it grease.
00:57So now this is the pancake portion.
01:00It's called Star Blend Cake Makeup, we call it pancake.
01:03It says it's pressed powder makeup.
01:10While the mascara is drying, I typically do my blush, and then I also put it up here on
01:16the hairline, just because with our stage lights, I want to make sure that there's a
01:24sort of definition before the hair and the crown and everything starts.
01:33Everything for this stage and the makeup that we do is just to sort of exaggerate and make
01:38our features as open as possible.
01:41The stage is, you know, very big, the audience is huge, and then we have those harsh like
01:46stage lights that we're constantly battling.
01:49From the audience, it really helps show our features.
02:00Hi Susie!
02:01I mean, yeah, I'll just do my ponytail and then I'll be up.
02:08So I just added like a little water, just so I can get the flyaways and everything really
02:14nice and neat.
02:16And now I'm just going to do my ponytail, and I always like to do it in a nice line
02:23of the profile.
02:24So we try to go for that.
02:34A little hairspray.
02:39And I like for it to be slick, but not so slick.
02:43So I always kind of leave just a little poof, I like to call it.
02:58Okay, so this is a little secret.
03:01So I'm just kind of pinning the hair up just to get it out of the way, but we call this
03:07like the zipper.
03:10And this is so that there's a really clean line in the back.
03:15So I take these small, almost like invisible hair pins, and I start at the bottom and I
03:22go from sort of the right side to the left.
03:26And I do that all the way up, and I always put my head up so that that gets like the
03:31most slack.
03:35Okay, now we go to Suzy.
03:48Hi, Grace!
03:49How are you?
03:50Good, how are you?
03:53The Sugar Plum Fairy, when she walks on stage, everybody goes, it's like magic.
03:59It's supposed to be like that.
04:02Suzy knows I like a little lift, so that's what she did.
04:16Some stuff that we have to keep in.
04:19Magical.
04:21So now it's time for the bun, and I'm pretty good at the French twist, but when it comes
04:26to buns, Suzy is the master.
04:30So I like to think of it as like a cinnamon swirl.
04:33You'll see, right?
04:34It kind of looks like that.
04:37The hair is not your basic ballerina bun.
04:41It has to be a little more elaborated.
04:44For Tyler, we keep it very classic.
04:46The Sugar Plum Fairy, I make it more fuller, so that it's more glamorous than the other
04:53regular bun.
04:55It's all because of the shape of the crown.
04:57The shape of the crown, yeah.
05:01Except like once we get all the pins sort of in, is to add a hairnet, and that's just
05:07for, you know, a little extra safety on stage.
05:21Okay, so now is the crown time.
05:23It's like so beautiful, these crowns.
05:26And I always kind of, we find the right placement.
05:29Is that good?
05:31And then I sort of hold it here just in the beginning while Suzy pins it, just to make
05:37sure it doesn't move on her.
05:39We use hair pins.
05:41I use like 20.
05:43These are Japanese special hair pins.
05:47They really secure everything.
05:50And what's nice about this crown is it has green and pink, and since I'm wearing both
05:54of those colors tonight, it matches both.
06:01I feel like it's always this moment when the crown goes on that you actually feel like,
06:05okay, I'm the Sugar Plum Fairy and it's going to happen tonight.
06:09Yeah, you know?
06:17Make sure everything looks very even, so I always put some, what do you call this, Grace?
06:23That's MAC powder.
06:25So Tyler usually does her own makeup, but what we do is we use MAC Studio Fix powder
06:31on her body to make everything look in sync in terms of like her skin tone.
06:35This is called Cream Blend Stick, and it's white, and I like to put just a little white
06:41in between the bottom of like the eyeline and before the eyeliner, and that just also
06:49helps sort of like open it up.
06:53And then sometimes I go back downstairs and I'll like retouch up the black part, but this
07:00is just so that the eye can be as open as possible.
07:10After I come downstairs, I always do one last check for eyeliner just because of the white
07:17I added, and that little zipper that I taught you upstairs, sometimes if you put your head
07:26back, you can get just a little bit of extra hair.
07:32Well, this role in particular was what made me want to be in the New York City Ballet.
07:37I was an 11-year-old in the audience, and I said, Daddy, I'm going to dance on that
07:42stage someday.
07:43So the fact that I get to play the Sugar Plum Fairy now is sort of still like a pinch me
07:48moment.
07:49Can't believe I get to play that role.
08:12This is actually the first time I'm wearing this costume.
08:24Yeah.
08:25It's brand new.
08:26Hot off the press.
08:27Hot off the press.
08:28This is Bettina, my dresser.
08:31The Sugar Plum Fairy is a difficult role and a high-pressure part for the artist doing
08:36it, and she does not appear on stage until Act II to get into the pink costume and then
08:41solo with the angels.
08:42As soon as that's over, she comes back here during the Spanish and changes into the Sugar
08:48Plum Green Tutu.
08:50Yeah, I think that feels good.
08:52Yeah.
08:53Let me just check the jewels.
08:54This is my first look.
08:55I do the solo variation, and then my second look is the Green Sugar Plum Tutu, and that's
09:01what I dance with my partner in.
09:03And I have to protect the Sugar Plum on stage left because there's the sleigh and there's
09:08set pieces, and she goes running in and out, so that's when we have to be like, ah!
09:12Yeah.
09:13I have a special way of doing it, which is kind of, I like to say, painting the rosin
09:30on.
09:31So I just take like a paper towel, and I put it on all the spots that I feel like could
09:37be slippery while performing.
09:38And then on the top, and then I always put a little rosin on the inside as well just
09:47because I feel like that helps the tights kind of grip.
09:54I guess ways of putting our shoes on.
09:57Some people use just paper towels.
10:01I don't like to feel my feet on the floor, so I use a lot of things.
10:04This is a really fun cast.
10:06Yeah.
10:07It's a cast of...
10:08It's a friend's cast tonight.
10:09Relax.
10:10Yeah.
10:11So see here how we just sort of sew the ribbons to themselves, like I'm not actually sewing
10:22it to my tights, but I'm just sewing them to one another so that they don't ever come
10:30out on stage.
10:33I just come over here, and I check my shoes in the mirror, make sure they look nice and
10:40neat.
10:41And this is the finished look.
10:44Thanks for joining Allure.
10:45See you on stage.