When the professional dancers of the Eugene Ballet Company take the stage at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at LaSells Stewart Center to perform "The Nutcracker," they will be joined by 48 local ballet students.

The dancers will get the thrill of their young careers that night: performing onstage and mingling backstage with the seasoned performers. The performance is the second in a set of three ballets that the Eugene company is sharing with Corvallis audiences during the 2009-10 season.

Local ballerinas will take on roles as flowers, calvary, party children, ladybugs, angels and baby mice in the holiday classic. The dancers, who auditioned into the production in September, are students at Corvallis Academy of Ballet and The Regional School of Ballet in Corvallis and Legacy Ballet Company in Albany.

The directors of these three schools are Jutta Hardison, Shelly Svoboda and Heather Hill, respectively.

The children were chosen for their roles by an impartial judge: Florabelle Moses of the Eugene Ballet School.

Over the course of the fall, Megan Skinner, an instructor with Corvallis Academy of Ballet and director of nonprofit company Willamette Apprentice Ballet, has headed up local rehearsals to prepare the dancers for the show. On the day of the performance, they also will have one costumed onstage rehearsal with the company.

"Slow down on that," Skinner admonished a group of ladybugs during a recent afternoon of rehearsals. "You don't win a prize if you finish it first."

Skinner knows the music and choreography to "The Nutcracker" by heart.

"I've done it many times, so I think I've got it down," she said.

While Skinner makes sure the students know all their steps, Eugene Ballet takes care of all the behind-the-scenes work on performance day, such as makeup and costumes, even providing supervision and entertainment for the young ballerinas backstage.

"Everything is so organized. Eugene Ballet has very efficient people who help the kids," Hardison said. "It's always darling."

It's a welcome break for parents such as Pattie Volk, whose work in support of ballet involves everything from baking treats for intermission to sewing costumes.

"They do everything; they keep everyone entertained," Volk said.

Volk's daughter Alanna, a 10-year-old fourth-grader at Hoover Elementary School, was cast as a ladybug in this year's production. In the past she has been both an angel and a baby mouse. This year, she has the distinction of getting to do a cartwheel on stage.

Cora Kim, 9, a fourth-grader from Franklin School, said her favorite part about being in last year's show was seeing the Sugar Plum Fairy dance. This year, she also will be a ladybug, which means hiding under the skirt of the enormous Mother Sunflower.

"It's really a big guy with controls (under there)," she confided.

According to Hardison, the baby mice cast this year are especially young - most just 5 or 6 years old - and some are just in their first three months of ballet lessons.

Watching the baby mice practice their squeaks at a recent rehearsal, Hardison smiled and said: "It's always the best part, but sometimes they forget what their legs do."

"The parents love it," Skinner said. "It's just so dang cute."

Both lifelong dancers, the instructors know that even a small part in a show like "The Nutcracker" can be the first step to a passion for dance.

"The discipline that you gain from ballet is really something that you can use all your life," Hardison said. "And, for them to be able to say I stood right next to the Sugarplum Fairy! ..."

Corvallis is the first stop on a tour that covers six states, 18 cities and 34 performances during a six week period. Eugene Ballet Company has the largest "Nutcracker" tour schedule of any ballet company on the West Coast this year. In all, more than 1,000 students from the host cities will join the company for performances.

Tickets to the show are $18 to $30 and available at Gracewinds Music in Corvallis, Sid Stevens Jewelers in Albany and the Hult Center in Eugene (682-5000 or www.hultcenter.org). Leftover tickets also will be available at the box office of LaSells Stewart Center one hour before show time.

The Eugene Ballet performance will be the first of two opportunities to catch a performance of this holiday classic in Corvallis. Another production of "The Nutcracker," hosted by Chamber Ballet and Regional School of Ballet, will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 4, and at 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 5, at the Corvallis High School Main Stage Theatre. For more information on that show and the annual Mouse King Tea Party at noon, Saturday, Dec. 5, call 758-8203.