Past Press coverage and photos of "The Night Harry Stopped Smoking"


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.


Billings Gazette Posted: Tuesday, March 6, 2007 11:00 pm
Letter: Opera's performance at school was stellar
The students and staff of Hillcrest Elementary School thoroughly enjoyed the presentation "The Night Harry Stopped Smoking," provided by the Rimrock Opera of Billings. The cast of adults and students were wonderful and particularly appealing due in part to the way they personalized the presentation by including some of our students.

This educational and extraordinary performance was very entertaining to a student body that has rarely, if ever, been exposed to opera. The singing and acting was very professional, and the message to quit or never start smoking was presented in a way that most students will remember.
We believe it will help our students, and perhaps some adults who watched, think twice before choosing to smoke or continue to smoke.

Thank you for sharing this outstanding performance with our school.
Maggie Cosner, Principal
Staff and students of Hillcrest Elementary
Gillette, Wyo.

 
Gillette News-Record Story: Opera aims to snuff smoking:  
 Published: Friday, February 23, 2007 12:29 PM MST
The night Harry stopped smoking, he learned about how his habit had hurt the rest of his body.

The day Ben Choate first saw a cigarette, he made a commitment never to pick up the habit.

“It’s easy to get addicted,” said the Wagonwheel Elementary sixth-grader.

Choate confirmed that decision Wednesday during a comic opera performance at his school. Rimrock Opera, a Billings, Mont., group, entertained kids at six local schools this week while educating them about the harms of smoking.

Harry, the main character, falls asleep in his chair one night with a cigarette in his hand. He awakens to find himself inside his own lungs where he meets the crew trying to keep his organs and cells healthy and strong and realizes how difficult their job has become since he began smoking.

“You may think you’re the boss, but we think you’re a jerk. You smoked until I got all clogged, and now I cannot work,” sang Cilia, a ciliary cell that vacuums up the nicotine, tar and other carcinogens in Harry.

Later on, Pumper, Harry’s heart, came out wearing a white tuxedo with red lines across it and a big plastic heart around his neck.

“You made this place a dump,” he told Harry. “I’ve been working so hard for you lately that I’m just beat.”

Briana Bronson, a sixth-grader at Hillcrest Elementary, got to be one of two student actors in the opera when it came to her school Thursday morning. She played the part of a ciliary cell, who told Harry, “I’m trying to work hard for you, duh!”

The performance hit home for Briana, whose mom used to smoke and who was once was asked by a peer to try smoking.

“I walked away and tried to find some other friends to hang out with,” she said. “Smoking affects all the parts of your body instead of just your lungs.”

Shalayna Hoekstra said her parents smoked until she was 2 years old, at which point they quit for her sister and her. She feels sick just from second-hand smoke and sees numerous reasons to avoid the habit at all costs.

“My parents would take me to Heritage Christian School,” said the Wagonwheel sixth-grader. “(Plus) I would probably die in the first week.”

Other students also want to avoid the habit because of the effects on their bodies.

“I can’t smoke because my lungs will be black,” added first-grader Gabe Guzman. Plus, his skin would age faster and his teeth would turn yellow.

Kids came away from the performance not only knowing that smoking is unhealthy, but also having learned some facts about its dangers: It takes only four cigarettes to become addicted to nicotine. Most people smoke two to three packs a day. The best way to quit smoking is to never start.

“When you give up those cigarettes, we know you’ll have no regrets,” the cast sang toward the end of the show.

When Harry wakes up from his dream, he decides to quit smoking. By all accounts from the enthusiastic audience members, it was a sound decision.

The night Harry stopped smoking, some kids vowed never to start.

— By CHRISTA MELAND, News-Record Writer

Photo by Lisa Kunkel of The Montana Standard
http://www.mtstandard.com/articles/2006/10/05/front/hjjdijjfhgihib.txt
 
 
A day at the opera- Rimrock Opera Co. performer Dennis Rupp, above in bathrobe, along with other cast members and Hillcrest Elementary students sing during a one-act musical comedy Wednesday morning at the school. The anti-smoking show is titled, “The Night Harry Stopped Smoking.” The musical aims to teach children the dangers of smoking through entertainment and song.

Rimrock Opera, Billings, begins Phase Three of its educational outreach school tour in February. "The Night Harry Stopped Smoking" focuses on the potential dangers of smoking through an entertaining interactive operetta/musical produced and staged by Rimrock Opera.
 
 

Opera delivers anti-smoking message
 LAURA TODE Of The Gazette Staff | Posted: Tuesday, January 10, 2006 11:00 pm
If your lungs had a voice, they might sing opera and warn of the dangers of smoking. In a Rimrock Opera School Tour, a troupe of opera singers visited Boulder Elementary to perform "The Night Harry Stopped Smoking," an opera with a healthy message.

"This is the first time we've done a health message," said Rimrock Opera artistic director Doug Nagel. "We've always just done entertainment."
The show Tuesday had children laughing as the professional opera singers portrayed stressed alveoli unable to filter the smoky air from Harry's lungs. They roared when the singers portraying ciliary cells donned crab hats and picked up brooms for a song and dance number to inform Harry they couldn't keep up with their cleaning and filtering duties in Harry's lungs because of the buildup of tar and nicotine.

The short opera included a rap by Pumper, Harry's overtaxed heart, and ended with Harry waking from his dream and deciding to quit smoking.
Nagel said he's excited to use opera as a way of encouraging children not to smoke.

Not only are they providing children with a healthy message, but they're also exposing children to opera.
Opera in schools has been a tradition of Rimrock Opera for several years, and in that time Nagel said he's seen appreciation for opera grow among young people.

He's seen students from local schools at big, full-length operas.
"These kids are probably educating their parents, too," he said.
The opera singers in Tuesday's performance are experienced professionals paid, in part, by a Yellowstone City-County Health Department tobacco use prevention grant.

They'll hit 50 schools in the next six weeks performing twice a day almost every day of the week. Their tour includes Billings and schools in the surrounding area, as well as trips to Miles City and Great Falls.
Rachel and Mary Pankratz, 11 and 12, and Maria Day, 11, sing, dance and travel with their grown-up counterparts. They're all experienced dancers, and Day sings with the Rimrock Opera Chorus for Kids. They're home-schooled, so they have the flexibility to coordinate their studies around their rigorous tour schedules.

The rest of the cast members were assembled just for the project and hail from Denver and California, as well as Billings.
"To get paid to do what I love and to see a positive impact being made on children - it's a dream come true," said Laura Twelves, a performer from San Jose, Calif.

Contact Laura Tode at ltode@billingsgazette.com or at 657-1392.

 DAVID GRUBBS/Gazette Staff Rimrock Opera member Cody Maki, playing a ciliary cell, gets a smile from third-grader Brittaney Wilkinson Tuesday at Boulder Elementary School. The Rimrock Opera was at the school performing a piece called "The Night Harry Stopped Smoking." A ciliary cell is a cell that helps clean the lungs.

Story: Posted: Monday, September 5, 2005 11:00 pm:
Gazette opinion: Rimrock Opera Company singing about not smoking