New Men of "Nutcracker" - Papajohn, Tilton and Melendez - NYTimes.com Only a few productions of "The Nutcracker" feature a character called the Snow Boy (or sometimes the Snow Prince). Usually his function is to add a powerful dash of virtuosity to the snow scene that ends Act I; sometimes he's a junior member of a Snow royal family. But I've always found the role trite - until Saturday afternoon, when Dances Patrelle performed "The Yorkville Nutcracker," and a 15-year-old dancer named Alexandros Pappajohn suddenly flooded the stage with style, charm and fantasy. Julieta Cervantes for The New York Times Maureen Duke, right, and members of Dances Patrelle in the "The Yorkville Nutcracker," which is set in a bygone New York. A 15-year-old dancer, Alexandros Pappajohn, made an impression. Amid an already engaging production choreographed by the company's artistic director, Francis Patrelle, and full of pleasing detail, Mr. Pappajohn's dancing suddenly made everything richer, fuller, more complex. While in midair, he appeared to conjure a woodwind triplet in the score, as if summoning the notes with a flourish of his hand. After spinning passionately on one leg, he leaned forward, brought his hands together and executed a grand port de bras, an arc that lifted his torso and ended with his parting his arms expansively. He did it as if his whole heart were in it: it became a gesture of devotion. I hadn't seen Mr. Pappajohn before; I hadn't even heard of him. Since Dances Patrelle is a company new to me, his was just another unfamiliar name on the program. Now I want to know when I can see him dance again. "The Yorkville Nutcracker" ended on Sunday at the Kaye Playhouse. To watch multiple "Nutcracker" productions is always a journey of discovery, finding new dancers and refreshing former acquaintances. Watching Ballet West, based in Salt Lake City, on Thursday, during its just concluded "Nutcracker" (choreographed by Willam Christensen) at the Kennedy Center in Washington, it struck me that Rex Tilton may well be the most versatile young male dancer in America. Thanks to Fall for Dance at City Center, New York saw him in 2009 as the hunky lead beach boy in Nijinska's work "Les Biches," and again this year, dancing (with long, relaxed phrases) the noble male role in Marius Petipa's "Grand Pas" from "Paquita"; that's already quite a contrast. He also appears in a reality TV show about the company, "Breaking Pointe," on CW. In Act I on Thursday, he played the crucial mime role of Drosselmeyer, adding particular notes of controlling mischief to the benevolent magic. In Act II, however, he played the mysterious male lead of the Arabian dance, an exotic macho conjurer whose female delight (Allison DeBona) arrives - and magically vanishes - at his command. In the finale he tossed her nonchalantly in the air and caught her again - multiple times - as they circuited the stage. Mr. Tilton isn't the sleekest or most dazzling powerhouse in American ballet. He's a real artist, though, and he projects a different mind in each role. Like Mr. Pappajohn, he catches the audience up in the reality of his vision. In Washington he was listed to dance three other roles at different performances (cavaliers to the Snow Queen and Sugar Plum Fairy, and the male lead in the Waltz of the Flowers); I wish I could see him dance them all. "The Nutcracker" is chiefly a ballet for women, but there have certainly been other men of note this season. In New York Theater Ballet's small-scale production on Sunday, both Philip King (in the double role of Drosselmeyer's Nephew and the Nutcracker Prince) and Steven Melendez (in the double role of Doctor Stahlbaum and the Sugar Plum cavalier) were exemplars of the way good manners and classical grace can turn seemingly formulaic roles into expressions of humanity at its most touchingly chivalrous. On Monday Mr. Melendez was one of the three nominees for the annual Clive Barnes Award honoring a young professional dancer. (The winner, Lauren Lovette, is scheduled to dance her first Sugar Plum Fairy with New York City Ballet on Dec. 23. Her acceptance speech already demonstrated several of the virtues needed for the role: generosity, courtesy, warmth and immediacy.) Despite the many other "Nutcracker" dancers worth discussing, it's both crucial and fun to note a few of the differences among this ballet's innumerable productions. Keith Michael's new version for New York Theater Ballet, playing the story without intermission and cutting at least two of its most famous musical sections (the solo dance of the Toy Soldiers and the Sugar Plum Fairy variation), is a chamber version that succeeds often remarkably. The party scene features only five characters: the Stahlbaum parents and their daughter, Marie; Drosselmeyer and his nephew, Nathaniel. It succeeds - just - because it takes on qualities of ritual and pattern; it's the least realistic party scene I've ever watched. The major classical dances of Act II could use more sense of ritual, though, and the first pas de deux for Marie and Nathaniel, set to the cosmically huge transformation music that precedes the snow scene, is emotionally overblown. Yet the production has sweetness, fun and intimacy. Although I've seen other productions feature a Marzipan Shepherdess with dancing sheep in Act II, this one, with the tiniest child who goes on dancing for the audience until the last possible moment, is especially irresistible. The Patrelle "Yorkville Nutcracker," set in a bygone New York, appeals to the tourist in me: it's so full of New York and American detail (even Theodore Roosevelt makes an appearance) that I wanted to watch it again to notice more of what it tells of local history. Ballet West's "Nutcracker" is one of America's oldest. In several respects - the musical detail with which adults and children are integrated at the party, the growth of the massive Christmas tree, the comedy of the mice, the way the long Arabian dance is paced like an exercise in narrative suspense - it is the equal of any. New York Theater Ballet performs its "Nutcracker" on Saturday and Sunday and on Dec. 22 at Gould Hall, 55 East 59th Street, Manhattan; nytb.org. Ballet West's "Nutcracker" runs through Dec. 29 in Salt Lake City; balletwest.org.