Cerrone became General Manager of the company. During his tenure, the number of dancers, budget, and size of the orchestra grew tremendously. [citation needed] Houston Ballet shared Jones Hall with the Houston Symphony, Houston Grand Opera, and the Society for the Performing Arts. In 1987, the Wortham Theater Center opened and became Houston Ballet's new performance home. The company launched its 1987–88 season on the new Wortham Theater Center's Brown Theater stage on September 2, 1987, with Stevenson's production of Romeo and Juliet, with Li Cunxin and Janie Parker in the title roles. The opening of Wortham Theater Center marked the beginning of a new era for Houston Ballet. The dancers finally had a sprung dance floor, a deeper stage, ample backstage space, and an expanded lighting grid - improvements that created new production possibilities. Stevenson engaged Desmond Heeley to redesign and enhance the production quality of his staging of The Nutcracker. This production premiered on December 4, 1987, and would be performed annually by the company for the next 30 years. In 1989, Houston Ballet appointed British choreographers Sir Kenneth MacMillan as Artistic Associate and Christopher Bruce as Associate Choreographer. Together, they brought modern influences to Houston Ballet's repertoire. Bruce introduced numerous works into Houston Ballet's repertoire over the next two decades, and MacMillan added five ballets, including his full-length Manon. Throughout the remaining 14 years of his directorship, Stevenson blended elegant new productions of classic ballets – notably La Sylphide, Cinderella, The Sleeping Beauty, La Fille Mal Gardée, and Don Quixote - with world premieres of several of his original full-length and shorter ballets: Alice in Wonderland (1992), Dracula (1997), and The Snow Maiden (1998). Finally, he choreographed Cleopatra (1999) for Lauren Anderson. Stevenson increased the number of guest choreographers by contracting works from internationally known dance-makers: Glen Tetley, James Kudelka, Paul Taylor, Jerome Robbins, Jiří Kylián, Lila York, William Forsythe, Natalie Weir, Brian Enos, Nacho Duato, David Parsons, Houston-born David Roussève, Farrell Dyde, Gillian Lynne, and Stanton Welch. During his tenure, Stevenson also nurtured the choreographic careers of several of his dancers: Daniel Jamison, William Pizzuto, Barbara Bears, Sean Kelly, Ken Kempe, Timothy O’Keefe, Sandra Organ, Kristine Richmond, Dominic Walsh, and Trey McIntyre. Organ and Walsh went on to establish their own companies in Houston, and McIntyre's choreography was added to the repertoires of several major companies. He formed his own company in Idaho in 2005, after