Before they put the 2006-2007 season to bed, BalletMet Columbus has one more production to unveil. This one’s already a classic.

The Sleeping Beauty will run April 26-29 at the Ohio Theatre in downtown Columbus. Featuring Bexley native Christian Broomhall as the leading man, Prince Florimund, this performance is sure to be a hit.

Broomhall, who danced in Leeds, England for four years before returning to Columbus in 2005, is looking forward to dancing in front of a home crowd.

“It’s nice,” says Broomhall, a graduate of the BalletMet Dance Academy. “I get to dance with and around the people I grew up with.”

All 29 of the company’s dancers will perform in the ballet’s run, as well as more than 40 students from the academy.

According to Artistic Director Gerard Charles, the audience will be wowed by the lavish scenery, complex choreography and compelling music. He added that a little bit of classic fairy tale magic never hurts either.

“It’s got a very long tradition, it’s a piece of classical repertoire,” says Charles, the Artistic Director since 2001. “It’s a great challenge for the dancers and enjoyable for everyone to see. It makes a nice finale.”

Although much of the original choreography remains, Charles did overhaul a few aspects of the piece to make it more contemporary. Some dances were sped up to meet today’s standards of precision and quickness, and the play was shortened from its original runtime of three and a half hours to a more presentable two hours.

In addition, one scene which used to only have three or four evil faeries on stage now has a little over a dozen students that are, in Charles’ words, “running around getting in everyone’s hair.”

The difficulty and tradition of The Sleeping Beauty, which was first performed in 1890 at St. Petersburg, adds pressure to the dancers. Broomhall said that, to him at least, his entire season rests on this performance.

“We tend to judge ourselves on the hardest stuff we do, as opposed to the bulk of our work. It’s a challenge,” he says.

Charles adds that, due to the ballet’s traditional nature, it is “the yardstick with which dancers evaluate themselves.”

The Sleeping Beauty will have five show times in four days, the first of which being April 26 at 7:30 p.m. Ticket prices range from $17 to $57. In addition, a senior dress rehearsal for audiences 55 and over will be performed on April 26 at 11 a.m. for $13.

For more information on The Sleeping Beauty and BalletMet Columbus, call 614-229-4848 or visit www.balletmet.org.