

The audience at this year’s Rotary Dinner Theatre will get “All Shook Up!” as the Union County High School Cafetorium rocks to the songs of Elvis Presley.
All Shook Up! is the latest collaboration by the Union Rotary Club and the Union County High School (UCHS) Department of Visual & Performing Arts. The musical, which will be performed Thursday, April 26, in the UCHS cafetorium, is inspired by and features the songs of Elvis Presley including “Jailhouse Rock,” “Teddy Bear,” “Hound Dog” and, of course, “All Shook Up!”
Cast members performed excerpts from the play for Rotarians during the club’s weekly meeting at Covenant Baptist Church Tuesday afternoon. The club has sponsored the event for the past 17 years, selling tickets and, in recent years, printing its programs. It shares the ad revenue generated by the programs and the funds raised through the ticket sales with the Visual & Performing Arts Department using the balance to help fund other community organizations and activities it supports. The dinner theatre is one of several fund raising activities/events sponsored by the club including its weekly aluminum can drive and its annual Low Country Boil.
Ralph Lawson, UCHS Drama teacher and head of the Visual Performing Arts Department, thanked Rotary for its partnership with his department and praised the club for its continuing support.
“We are very fortunate to be associated with the Rotary,” Lawson said. “Years ago, a member of Rotary, Dennis Campbell, approached me about doing a dinner theater production of a musical. I had always wanted to do large-scale musicals here, so that was the perfect opportunity to start that here at the high school. Rotary is good for us because they bring in a lot of people from the community to see our young people and it has been so good for our program. Since they have started doing this the Union Rotary has been nothing short of excellent working with us on this.”
Dinner will be served at this year’s dinner theatre at 6:30 p.m. followed by the musical.
Tickets for the dinner theatre are $15 each and may be purchased at the Union County Arts Council, Union County High School, at Arthur State Bank from Wanda Littlejohn, and from any Rotarian.






