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Photo courtesy Bob Bellinger

Shown here in rehearsals for Clemson Little Theatre's reprisal of "Oliver!" The Artful Dodger, played by Adam Wells, is teaching the orphans how to pick a pocket.

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Photo courtesy Bob Bellinger

Bill Sykes, left, played by Patrick Fant, attempts to bring Oliver, played by Brock Fant, back to Fagin’s army during rehearsals for Clemson Little Theatre's production of "Oliver!"

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Photo courtesy Bob Bellinger

The Artful Dodger, played by Adam Wells, is being reprimanded by Fagin, played by Paul Hyde, for not picking enough pockets.

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“Oliver!”

Sept. 5 – 7, 12 – 14

Clemson Little Theatre

Pendleton

8 p.m.

Sunday matinee: 3 p.m.

Adults $15, students $7

(864) 646-8100

clemsonlittletheatre.com

PENDLETON — Dancing orphans are something you expect from a musical. Less typical: homicide plots and scenes set in an undertaker’s parlor.

Perhaps unlikely shades are why audiences have flocked to “Oliver!” since the show’s 1960 debut in London’s West End.

“It is a very dark play,” said Jane Street, director of a new Clemson Little Theatre production of ‘Oliver!’ The man who wrote it, Lionel Bart, is a genius for being able to put theses characters together. They stretch the range of emotions. There are people in this play you will hate, and people you will want to pick-up and shake for making such stupid decisions.”

Among the shaken and stirred: the Artful Dodger, a pickpocket who fancies himself a gentleman, complete with top hat. In the CLT show, Adam Wells — a 15-year-old singing, dancing and acting triple-threat — holds down the role.

Then there’s Fagin (played by Upstate theatre vet Paul Hyde), a career criminal who teaches young lads the trade. Since “Oliver!” flits back and forth from comedy to pallor, Hyde’s versatility was a major asset, according to Street.

“His range in terms of acting skill is just marvelous,” she said.

Eleven-year-old Brock Fant fills the title character’s shoes. (Fun fact: Early London productions of “Oliver!” featured several future pop and rock stars, including Phil Collins, The Monkees’ Davy Jones and Small Faces/ Humble Pie front man Steve Marriot.)

Street praised Fant for his booming voice and ability to pull pathos from the back row.

“His character has a pretty rotten life, and everyone in the audiences will want to take him home and rescue him,” Street said.

Winthrop University senior Elizabeth Connors tackles the lone female lead, the fantastically dubbed Nancy Barmaid. Connors, a Seneca native, stretches out from her opera background and soprano pipes to handle the role’s husky, mid-range material.

Loosely based on the Charles Dickens novel “Oliver Twist,” “Oliver!” boasts songs ranging from little-boy ballads (“Where Is Love”) to rowdy tavern tunes (“Ohm Pa Pa”).

According to the show’s director, all the music serves the story:

“‘Oliver!’ was written in the ’60s, and in the 1950s there was this total turn about what constitutes a musical. Before then it had grown out of vaudeville and was essentially one big production number after another, with the story line an afterthought. ‘Carousel’ and ‘Oklahoma!’ were the first two musicals that weren’t just fun and bounding around on stage. They had bad stuff in them. ‘Oliver!’ is very much like that.”

A Salem resident, Street admits as a director she has a penchant for glitz. Hence her past work helming big shows, like “Kismet” for CLT and “The Sound of Music” at Oconee Community Theatre.

“They tease me and say gaudy is my middle name,” Street said. “I’m kind of the ‘musical person.’ That may be because no one else is dumb enough to take that on.”

In “Oliver!” the bigness comes not from sequins but sheer numbers. At one point during the first act, there are 25 actors onstage. Roughly 30 of the 42-person cast are teens or younger, but Street said the juniors were easy to focus. The first two weeks of rehearsals, which began in early July, were dedicated exclusively to the song list. For musical director, CLT brought in a big shot: Pendleton resident Ron Goldstein, who has arranged tunes for Disney on Ice and Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus. During the CLT run, Goldstein will also provide live accompaniment on piano.

In case the ringer isn’t enough, Street has arranged for some backup bribery. Most of the cast members 12 years old or under don’t appear in the second act, and waiting backstage when the intermission curtain drops will be a school kid’s feast: pizza and lemonade.