The unique blend of aspects featured in City Ballet of Boston’s “Urban Nutcracker” – a backdrop of the downtown Boston skyline, diverse dance styles, musical compositions, and dancers of all ages performing – has lured audiences back to the performances year after year.

“This is a special ‘Nutcracker.’ It’s very homegrown. There are a lot of dancers who are from Dorchester, Boston, and the New England area,” said Dorchester’s Ruth Whitney, who will be this year’s Sugar Plum Fairy, the Snow Queen, and an Arabian dancer while her husband Bill will be leading the live orchestra as the show’s music director.

Staged by Anthony Williams, “Urban Nutcracker,” which kicks off on Dec. 18 at the Boch Center Shubert Theatre, is a spin-off of the traditional ballet that spotlights the diversity of Boston’s arts community. This year marks the show’s 20th anniversary and a return to the stage after a year off due to the pandemic.

For Ruth and Bill, both 42, performing with the “Urban Nutcracker” this year is especially important. Before the pandemic started, Ruth, who has been performing since she was 3, was considering retiring from dance. But when her last performance was canceled last year due to the pandemic, she used her time in isolation to train with other dancers who had taken part in past “Urban Nutcracker” performances.

The Whitneys, who have lived in Dorchester for the last 12 years, transformed their dining room into a ballet studio where Ruth, their 3-year-old son, and 7-year-old daughter could practice. Now, Ruth will be returning to the stage as a more refined artist due to that training, she said.

“Ruth and I don’t get to perform together a lot,” Bill said, “and when [we do], it’s something really special to me.”

The Whitneys aren’t the only Boston residents returning to the show. Tap dancer Khalid Hill, who appeared in the first staging in 2001, is joining the cast to lead the tap scenes in the ballet. Hip-hop dancer Ricardo Foster Jr., who also performed in the show’s debut, will play the hip-hop Soldier Doll.

At its core, Williams’s “Urban Nutcracker” stays true to the original “Nutcracker” plot, but he takes a few liberties. The show, set in present-day Boston, features a diverse cast of dancers from across Massachusetts and dance styles ranging from ballet, tap, and hip-hop to flamenco. Intertwined with Tchaikovsky’s classical music score are jazzier numbers from the legendary Duke Ellington.

“Part of its success is having that sense of family, that sense of community, that sense of inclusion,” Williams said. “Everyone these days is talking about diversity, but we’ve been addressing diversity for 20 years now.” 

When he was first making plans for the show back in 2001, Williams pulled inspiration from Boston’s Downtown Crossing, where he saw people dancing on the street and playing drums. He decided to recreate this scene on stage, along with design replicas of recognizable Boston landmarks, including the Public Garden, the Citgo sign, and Fenway Park’s “Green Monster.” 

For Williams, his interest in the arts began at the Strand Theatre in Uphams Corner, which sat only a few blocks away from where he grew up. He got his start in classical ballet when he performed in the Boston Ballet’s first “Nutcracker” in 1965. He returned to the Strand in 2001, where “Urban Nutcracker” was performed for the first time and thereafter for the following five years. 

Since that first performance, the show has grown to include a larger orchestra and more dance numbers featuring live music. This year, members of the Brooklyn Ballet Co. in New York are joining a cast and crew composed of 145 people. Each year, dancers who have performed in the production in the past return to their roles.

“When you’re in the ‘Urban Nutcracker’ you’re kind of part of the family,” Ruth Whitney said. Whenever she gets to perform in “Urban Nutcracker,” she is living out her childhood dreams. When her parents first took her to see the original ballet by The Boston Ballet company, she was transfixed by the whole performance. Now she performs in nearly 30 “Nutcracker” shows each holiday season and captures the admiration of younger audiences, as well as young dancers performing alongside her. 

Dorchester’s Ella Moye-Gibbons, 16 and a student at Boston Latin Academy, is in her ninth season with the “Urban Nutcracker”—the only version of “The Nutcracker” that she is familiar with. This year, she’ll be juggling five roles as a soldier, a rat, a sugar plum attendant, a puppet, and an Arabian maiden.

Amelia Brown, also from Dorchester and at 12 a Boston Latin School student, will be rejoining the production for her third year.  “I love the show because it’s so diverse and it has a lot more styles of dance than your average ‘Nutcracker,’” she said.

As the show has grown over the years, it has established itself as a fixture of the Boston arts scene. “Everything about the cast and the way the material is presented, I feel like, is a part of the community of Boston,” said Bill Whitney. “Even though 20 years have passed, it still retains that sense of community.”