Dear Ms. DeGeneres,

Hey ya’ll! Greetings from the other side of the country, the good ol’ South Carolina coast.

I am writing on behalf of Coastal Youth Ballet Theatre of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and one thousand of our closest friends with a very special request to petition YOU, Ellen DeGeneres, to be one of our guest Mother Gingers for our annual performance of the holiday classic, The Nutcracker Ballet!

Coastal Youth Ballet Theatre will be performing The Nutcracker on December 14, 15, 20 and 21, 2015, in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. For our 10th anniversary, we are seeking a national celebrity to guest as the beloved role of Mother Ginger during just one of the six performances.

We need someone who enjoys being in front of an audience. We need someone who can have fun. We need someone who loves working with kids. We need someone who can dress up and bring a character to life like no one else!

Ellen DeGeneres - YOU are just THAT PERSON!

Loved by audiences, young and old, the Mother Ginger character provides one of the favorite moments in The Nutcracker. In act two of the ballet, the young Clara and her Nutcracker Prince meet the Sugarplum Fairy and the Cavalier in The Land of Sweets. In celebration of Clara's triumph over the Mouse King, the Sugarplum Fairy presents a series of dances honoring Clara. Audiences look forward to seeing the campy and loony Mother Ginger take the stage in all of her off-the-wall attire. Imagine her being up in an elevated contraption, endowed with a chest the size of beach balls, adorned with a crazy wig and a skirt that looks like it is couple hundred pounds of fabric. The Mother Ginger character simply provides the comic relief in the ballet.

I know that you are a very busy person so I will keep the next part of our request as brief as possible. Please allow me to provide you with some background of our organization. You may also contact us at www.CYBT.org or [email protected]

About Coastal Youth Ballet Theatre
Coastal Youth Ballet Theatre (CYBT) is a non-profit 501 © (3) organization that was founded by Liza Mata in 2006 as the performing company of Coastal Dance Centre. The organization is based in Myrtle Beach and in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina. The mission of the organization is to promote arts appreciation and cultural enhancement in the community, providing access to high caliber ballet training and performance opportunities through professionally-staged productions and educational initiatives.

CYBT provides a nurturing and intensive artistic home base to some of the area's and South Carolina's most talented young dancers. CYBT provides its young dancers a pre-professional training program that prepares them eventually for the professional world or should they decide to choose another career path, be able to use the life skills learned in dance: discipline, hard work, patience, respect, perseverance, determination, resiliency, cooperation, and good behavior - all necessary ingredients for success in life.

As an organization, Coastal Youth Ballet Theatre strives to provide a venue where an entire community of artists and supporters of the arts are one in promoting arts awareness and appreciation.

Why we need you!

Ellen, you must understand that Myrtle Beach is a very tourist-oriented city. While I love every aspect of living here, I must admit it is a struggle to gain the community’s support of the classical arts.

CYBT itself is just a baby in the nonprofit arts organizations that we compete with for grant funding and community support. I like to say we are the little engine that could as I have seen in just 9 years the organization grow from just an audience of barely 200 people of our first Nutcracker performance to audiences of over 5,000 people this past Nutcracker.

I am very proud to have been a part in some small way since the beginning and hope to see us grow into the grand vision that our Artistic Director has for us. I promise you will not meet a more dedicated group of dancers and volunteers. They simply amaze me at what we have been able to accomplish.

We know the invaluable lessons that children can learn from the performing arts and in an area where the arts and their impact on the community are often overlooked. We are seeking to raise our presence through the involvement of someone in your position. It is, after all, the arts that teach us how to think beyond boundaries and inspire creativity and change.


Thank you for taking the time to read our request. We hope that you will consider joining us this year as one of our guest Mother Gingers for our 10th year, making it our best year yet!


Most Sincerely Yours,


April Stoddard, Sandra Hucks and ALL of our amazing CYBT volunteers