Open Auditions Announced for Columbia Classical Ballet’s New Production of Don Quixote

The Production

COLUMBIA, S.C. Columbia Classical Ballet, the capital’s professional ballet company, opens its season with the full-length classical ballet Don Quixote on Friday, October 2, 2026, at the Koger Center for the Arts, with an evening performance at 7:30 p.m. and a 10 a.m. Educational Outreach morning performance for area schools. Children and adults from across the Midlands are invited to audition, and those cast will perform alongside the professional company.

This is a new production choreographed by Artistic Director Joseph Phillips and Resident Choreographer Irene Liu, after Marius Petipa and Alexander Gorsky, with music by Ludwig Minkus. The production is staged and rehearsed by Ballet Master Sergei Zolotarev, formerly of the Mariinsky Theatre, where the ballet’s tradition lives.

The Story

Don Quixote is classical ballet’s great comedy. Kitri, the innkeeper’s daughter, loves Basilio the barber, charming, broke, and late to everything, while her father has promised her to Gamache, a rich nobleman with magnificent clothes and no idea he’s ridiculous. Into the middle of it wanders Don Quixote, a dreaming old knight who battles a windmill, mistakes Kitri for the lady of his visions, and appoints himself protector of the young lovers. It all peaks when Basilio fakes his own death in the town square, so convincingly that Kitri’s father blesses the marriage as a dying wish. Then Basilio springs back to life, grinning. Set in sunny Spain, it ends in one of the most celebrated wedding scenes ever danced.

The production arrives during Hispanic Heritage Month, September 15 through October 15, and the morning performance offers area schools a front-row seat to a story straight from Spanish literature.

The Roles

Auditions are open to every child and adult in Columbia. Don Quixote is full of character roles, roles that live on acting, timing, and stage presence rather than ballet technique, and Columbia’s actors and performers are especially invited. Character roles include Don Quixote himself, the dreaming knight. Sancho Panza, his loyal squire. Lorenzo, Kitri’s exasperated father. Gamache, the preening rich suitor. The Duke and Duchess. And the townspeople and vendors who fill the square. They carry the show’s biggest laughs.

Children’s roles include street children and villagers and the cupids of the famous Dream Scene. No ballet training is required for character roles, and no preparation is necessary.

The Auditions

Character roles will be cast at a special audition on Sunday, August 16, from 10 a.m. to noon at the School of Columbia Classical Ballet, 610 Harden Street in Five Points. Actors and first-timers are welcome. The audition is simple staging and acting exercises led by the artistic team.

Dancers, children and adults, will be seen at the company’s open auditions on Saturday, August 22, held together with auditions for the company’s December production of The Nutcracker. One audition covers both productions. On the audition form, dancers mark whether they’d like to be considered for Don Quixote, The Nutcracker, or both.

Please arrive 30 minutes early to check in and receive an audition number. Students should wear leotards, tights, and ballet shoes, with hair secured. Adults may wear loose clothing with ballet or character shoes. The audition is short combinations shown by Artistic Director Joseph Phillips, Rehearsal Director Sergei Zolotarev, and Resident Choreographer Irene Liu, repeated in groups.

About the School

The School of Columbia Classical Ballet is at 610 Harden Street in Columbia’s historic Five Points district, in a studio behind a wall of glass where the whole city can watch. Classes serve ages 3 through adult. For more information, visit columbiaclassicalballet.com.