By Daily Press staff
The hills of Santa Monica will soon be alive with the sound of music.

The Santa Monica Civic Light Opera (SMCLO) presents their final production in their 2005/2006 season, closing with the most cherished musical of all time, “The Sound of Music, “for one weekend only, July 21-23 in the restored Barnum Hall Theater. The movie starring Julie Andrews won five Oscars, and the Broadway show ran for 1,443 performances and garnered six Tony award wins.

The SMCLO cast from The Sound of Music is comprised of professionals, Samohi theatre alumni, and current high school students. The handshake partnership between professionals and students is what makes the SMCLO productions so extraordinary, event organizers said. Since 1989 the SMCLO has been producing full-scale, professional musicals in Barnum Hall every summer.

Immediately following the close of The Sound of Music in Santa Monica, the troop will give an encore performance of The Sound of Music on Wednesday, July 26 at 7 p.m. in the historic Avalon Casino Theater and present a sensational 90-minute, one-act, cabaret-style, musical revue, called Showstoppers on Thursday, July 27 at 8 p.m. in the world famous Avalon Ballroom.

After last summer’s sold-out performance of “My Fair Lady” in the Avalon Casino Theater, the troop returns with The Sound of Music and Showstoppers. The Showstoppers Musical Revue boasts a stellar line up of 20 hit numbers from such current shows as “Aida,” “Chicago,” “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,” “Hairspray,” “The Last Five Years,” “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” “The Producers,” “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” “The Wild Party,” “Spamalot” and “Wicked.”

The Sound of Music takes place in Austria, 1938 and plays in Santa Monica on Friday, July 21 at 8 p.m.; Saturday, July 22 at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., and closes on Sunday, July 23 at 2 p.m. — for four shows only — in Barnum Hall, the troupe’s, 1,200-seat, newly restored main stage performance space.

Tickets are $20 and $25 for matinees, and $25 and $30 for Friday night. A special SMCLO gala fundraiser will take place on Saturday, July 22 at 8 p.m. and feature selections from Showstoppers after the show. Tickets are $40 and $50. To preserve the hall’s beauty, there will not be any concessions served.

The cast from The Sound of Music will comprise most of the company of performers for “Showstoppers,” however, producer Brett Fisher will augment the cast of main-land performers by auditioning local talent in Avalon to be in the show.

Fisher oversees the entire production operation and serves as the show’s music director.

“After last summer’s hugely successful sold-out, one-night-only production, we wanted to come back with a second show where we could embark on a collaborative partnership with the local community residents and give them not just another one of our shows to see, but one that showcases what great talent already exists on the island, and that is what they’ll get,” he said.

The SMCLO, a sponsored educational activity of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, serves as a partner to Santa Monica High School’s theatre arts program, enhancing the student experience through mentoring by alumni and theatre professionals and developing productions for the Humanities Center and Barnum Hall stages.

For more information, call (310) 458-5939 or visit www.smclo.org.