Eau Claire Artist-in-Residence and SC Philharmonic Conductor Nicholas Smith helps a student with a musical piece.

Drama, dance, and music come together at Eau Claire High School's production of Orpheus in the Underworld at Columbia College's Cottingham Theatre. The operetta features more than 30 Eau Claire High School students accompanied by professional musicians from the SC Philharmonic. It is directed by Eau Claire Theatre instructor Jerry Stevenson and with musical direction by Eau Claire Artist-in-Residence and SC Philharmonic Conductor Nicholas Smith. Originally conceived as a partnership to expose high school students to the world of opera on a practical level, last year's production of The Mikado garnered such student and audience response the project was extended.

According to Smith, "Eau Claire is really leading the way among high schools in making opera an educational priority. The discipline of learning something unfamiliar, memorizing it, and then doing curious things on stage while you sing it, is so bizarre a concept it must surely have huge benefits to every student involved."

The show is re-staged and set among the skid-row underground. It follows Orpheus to Mount Olympus and, subsequently, to Hades in search of his wife, Eurydice, who has been spirited away by Pluto, disguised as a mild-mannered shepherd.

Probably most famous for its Act III Gallop, better known as the Can-Can, the show ends in a rollicking barroom extravaganza featuring members of the Eau Claire dance department, choreographed by dance instructor Barbara Howse- Diemer.

Orpheus in the Underworld runs an hour and a half with a 15 minute intermission Tuesday, March 14 and Wednesday, March 15 at 7:30 pm. Tickets are $5.00 at the door. A closing night reception hosted by the Palmetto Opera and Stevens & Wilkinson of SC, Inc. will follow. For more information, please call 735-7608.

www.richlandone.org/schools/HighSchools/eauclaire.htm