Unto These Hills Outdoor Drama

Major wager in Cherokee

All appeal to 55-year-old females, Harrah's targeted demographic, whether they're here to gamble or along for the ride.

Also calculated to draw them:

A 3,000-seat theater opened last fall, with name acts clustered around weekends. Michael Bolton and REO Speedwagon played there this spring, but the lineup is skewed toward country stars. Headliners this summer include Vince Gill (July 1), Trace Adkins (July 22), Rodney Carrington (July 29), George Jones (Aug. 27) and Travis Tritt (Sept. 2). Tickets usually start around $35 or $40. Other events include an Ultimate Elvis competition ($20 and up, July 16) and a concert by Chubby Checker (Aug. 20). Amenities include suites and boxes.

CHEROKEE The Harrah's casino that began here as a glorified slots shack is today a full-service, year-round attraction where change is ongoing, especially these days. A five-year, $633 million expansion is nearing completion, with new projects opening every several months.

Haven't been there in six months? Despite the familiar sounds - the ping and whir of electronic gaming machines, the bustle of construction - it's a different and bigger game.

The casino, which opened in 1997 as a one-story affair on the banks of Soco Creek, is today the major player in area tourism - an ever-expanding enterprise with three high-rise hotel towers and about 41/2 acres of gaming rooms. While other destinations across the Southeast froze or withered during the recession, the casino complex continued to expand and renovate; its current push is slated to wrap up next year.

Luck has little to do with it. Harrah's, the gambling chain that runs the operation for the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation, always plays by the numbers.

The reservation was historically a second- or third-tier destination - beautiful scenery, an impoverished but proud population.

But Cherokee was well situated when reservation gambling caught fire in the country 20 years ago: two hours from Knoxville, Tenn., 21/2 from metro Atlanta, and about three hours from Charlotte, Columbia and Chattanooga, Tenn. The drive-to allure is amplified by being just up the road from Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The deal brokered with the state of North Carolina called for electronic gambling only. What seemed a liability 14 years ago actually held advantages: Society is no longer wary of glorified computer screens. Fewer staffers are required to maintain play. And play can be much faster.

"Unto These Hills" Outdoor Drama - Cherokee, NC

You can feel an ever so slight chill run up your spine. But it is not from the mountain winds shifting their direction in anticipation of the coming dusk, it is from your anticipation of the coming drama. It is a feeling millions before you have felt as the lights dim and you are transported back to the beginning of time, through the pageantry of one of the longest running outdoor dramas in the U.S. It is the same reaction visitors have had since the first showing of "Unto These Hills" nearly six million tickets ago. But it is also very different from the drama of days past. The show today has been reconcepted to better portray the unique story of the Cherokee from a historical perspective. The new play traces the Cherokee people through the aeons, through the zenith of their power, through the heartbreak of the Trail of Tears, finally ending, appropriately, in the present day, where the Cherokee people, much like their newly re-scripted drama, continue to rewrite their place in the world. A place based on traditional Cherokee values and modern sensibilities.

The Facts on File Companion to American Drama

The East Tennessee Historical Society's publications

War and American popular culture, a historical encyclopedia

The Cambridge guide to American theatre

The Back Stage guide to working in regional theater, jobs for actors and other theater professionals