Rimrock Opera The Night Harry Stopped Smoking

The Night Harry Stopped Smoking

a one-act musical comedy for children
By John Davies and Ross Dabrusin

Photo courtesy of The Billings Gazette

Rimrock Opera, Billings, begins Phase 3 of its educational outreach school tour this month. At its conclusion, the spring and autumn segments of the 2006 tour of "The Night Harry Stopped Smoking" had reached 14,000 students in eight weeks. During Phase 3, we will tour 20 schools to help 4,000 students in Billings, Bozeman and northern Wyoming understand the risks of tobacco use.

The object of this tour is to educate young children to the dangers of nicotine addiction which is the direct result of smoking cigarettes.

For more of this story, click here.

Story: Feature photos: Opera in the school--September 27, 2008 JAMES WOODCOCK/Gazette Staff--Members of the Rimrock Opera Jess Munoz, left, and Dennis Rupp perform during the comedy opera "The Night Harry Stopped Smoking" for kids at Bench Elementary on Friday. In the opera, "Harry," played by Rupp, is trying to quit smoking and is visited in a dream by his heart, a hip-hop character named "Pumper" played by Munoz. Also performing were Doug Nagel, Laura Loge, Maria Day, Danielle Nichols, Deidre Walker and Bench students Kathryn Emanuel and Breanna Besselman. More>

Local kids will join our professional cast to learn not only about the dangers of smoking but also the joys of musical theater.

Harry falls asleep in his chair one night with a cigarette in his hand. He wakes to find himself inside his own lung! He meets the crew trying to keep his body clean--nerve cells Fred and Ginger, ciliary cells Sid and Cilia, Pumper his Heart, and a whole bunch of lung sacs called Alveoli. Their message: his smoking is making them sick.

Download Study Guide (PDF 1.4 meg) (Word Document 775k)

The Night Harry Stopped Smoking is suitable for kids in grades K-6.

See official flyer
For more information on the dangers of tobacco use, click here

http://www.dphhs.mt.gov/PHSD/prevention_opps/pdf/MPHAugust07.doc

To see a pdf slide presentation of a performance, click here

Photo by JAMES WOODCOCK/Gazette Staff
(October 30) Rimrock Opera Company director Doug Nagel, center, acts with opera singers and dancers, from left, Dennis Rupp, Maria Day, Banielle Nichols and Laura Twelves. The group was performing "The Night Harry Stopped Smoking" for students at Bitterroot Elementary Monday afternoon. The outreach program focuses on the dangers of smoking through a comical operetta/musical. The opera company will continue the program today at Sandstone Elementary and Park City School, and Wednesday will perform at Roosevelt School in Red Lodge and Roberts School.