If there is a moral to this following story, it could well be this: Be polite to those sitting next to you in a theater, because you never know when one of them will make one of your dreams come true.
In 2022, Tulsa Ballet artistic director Marcello Angelini was in London to visit former colleague Christopher Palmer, who was at the time serving as the director of the Royal Ballet School. The friend invited him to attend the school’s end-of-the-year performance, which was presented in the Linbury Studio Theatre of the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden.
“When I was working in Great Britain, the Linbury Theatre was the pits,” said Angelini, whose resume as a principal dancer includes tenures with the English National Ballet, Scottish Ballet and English Northern Ballet.
In the intervening years the theater has undergone a major $76 million-plus renovation that has transformed the space into one of the most technologically advanced performance spaces in the world.
“I remember asking Chris after the first act of the evening, ‘What do I need to do to see about bringing (Tulsa Ballet) here?’” Angelini recalled. “Chris said, ‘You might want to talk to the lady on your left. That’s Emma Southworth, who does all the programming for the Linbury Theatre.’”
This chance meeting — along with a subsequent bit of serendipity when Royal Ballet CEO Kevin O’Hare happened to visit the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in 2023 when Tulsa Ballet was one of the headline performers — led to the company being featured as part of the 2025-2026 season of the Royal Opera & Ballet at Covent Garden.
From May 13-17, Tulsa Ballet will present a program titled “Made in America,” a trio of contemporary one-act ballets. The five performances have been essentially sold out for weeks.
The company’s residency at the Linbury Studio Theatre has attracted the attention of the London dance press, with publications such as the Times of London, The Guardian, The Observer and Dance Europe among those considering reviews of the company’s London debut.
Tulsa Ballet is bringing to London a total of 27 dancers and 15 staff members, including a team that will be making a documentary about the tour, one lighting designer, one choreographer, one production box and five traveling wardrobe cases.
Samantha Ryan, the company’s artistic operations manager, began working last August on the logistics of moving all these people and things the 4,538 miles between Tulsa and London.
“This will be the fourth tour I’ve worked on with Tulsa Ballet, and the second overseas tour,” she said. “Last season we toured in Italy and Germany, and that certainly was a trial by fire. Luckily all the experiences and procedures built from that tour has made this one easier to anticipate.”
The 2025 tour had the company performing single-night shows in several Italian cities before concluding with two sold-out performances in Bonn, Germany. Ryan said the company was able to secure lodgings close to the Covent Garden area since trying to maneuver a tour bus through some of London’s cramped streets can be next to impossible.
“So this (tour) will be a fun new challenge of navigating the (London) Underground as a group,” Ryan said. “But then touring is always about flexibility and finding unique ways to solve even more unique challenges.”
Bringing Tulsa Ballet to London, and to Covent Garden in particular, has long been a dream of Angelini’s, in large part because of the esteem with which he holds the host company.
“We are going to be in the home of what is arguably the best ballet company in the world right now,” Angelini said. “It is a great company with a great history, operating in the most artistically cultured cities in Europe, maybe in the world.”
With a roster of about 100 dancers, The Royal Ballet has an operating budget of more than $200 million a year. By comparison, Tulsa Ballet’s annual operating budget is about $8.5 million.
The company has been the artistic home of some of the most renowned choreographers in dance history, from Frederick Ashton and Kenneth MacMillan to Wayne McGregor and Christopher Wheeldon.
“To be on that company’s home stage, in front of that company’s audience, to have the Royal Ballet consider Tulsa Ballet worthy of its consideration,” he said, “is tremendously exciting. It’s also tremendously humbling, and maybe even a little frightening.”
The “Made in America” program consists of two works that were created specifically for Tulsa Ballet: “Divenire” by Nicolo Fonte and “Remember Our Song,” Tony Award-winning choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler’s first work created for a ballet company. The program also includes Yuri Possokhov’s “Classical Symphony,” a work that Tulsa Ballet has made something of a signature piece.
The three ballets offer a glimpse at the evolution of American dance. Possokhov’s work combines the choreographer’s knowledge of Russian classical dance technique and history with the speed and audacity that are more representative of American culture.
“Divenire” is an example of contemporary ballet — a plotless work that conjures up deep emotions through lyrical, fluid choreography. And Blankenbuehler’s work is an example of what Angelini considers the most essentially American form of dance.
“Broadway dance is the coming together of just about everything,” he said, “from classical ballet and the contemporary dance of Martha Graham, Twyla Tharp and others, to jazz and tap, and it all comes together to make this very energetic, very sharp, very focused sort of dance that to my mind is essentially American.”
Earlier this season, The Royal Ballet featured the Paul Taylor Dance Company as part of its season. Taylor’s work is also very rooted in the American idiom, although his work is more of a reflection of the mid-20th century. Tulsa Ballet’s “Made in America” program is very much of the 21st century.
“This program reflects what America is now,” Angelini said. “Whether we like it or not, America is a country of immigrants, who came here with the wish and the will to contribute to the growth of this country.”
And that philosophy is reflected in this company, which is run by an immigrant, with an entire artistic staff composed of immigrants, with a group of dancers from about a dozen different countries.
“We all came to America to make something special for America, and then to take it around the world,” he said. “We hope that by making our personal dreams come true, we are able to make this country a better place for everyone to live.”
What Tulsa Ballet is “taking around the world” has obviously struck a chord with other countries, as the company’s performances in Europe and Asia have a tendency to sell out far in advance.
That is true of the five performances set for the Linbury Theatre, and it is a phenomenon that is both heartening and puzzling to Angelini.
“It could simply be that London is a city of 12 million or so people, and it’s a city that is known for cultural tourism,” he said. “But it is also possible that Tulsa Ballet has a better reputation abroad than it does in its home town.
“The thing to understand is that there is going to be a time when, if people in Tulsa don’t realize what they have in Tulsa Ballet, it will go away,” Angelini said. “I would hate to see that happen — for people to realize they didn’t appreciate what they had until it was gone.
“That’s why I tell people who may have never experienced Tulsa Ballet to just experiment by going to a performance,” he said. “We have tickets that cost less than a martini at a good bar in town, and I can promise you, you’ll experience something memorable.”
News decisions at the Tulsa Flyer are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.