Paul Cooper sees it as an opportunity to “go out in a blaze of glory.”

The veteran Albert Lea actor said this weekend’s performance of “Inherit the Wind” at the Lighthouse Event Center may be his last play. Whether it’s his last or not, it’s certainly among his favorites.

Cooper said he was in the play in Owatonna with Marion Ross Performing Arts Center director Patrick Rasmussen in 2000. “I told him I’d really like to do it again,” Cooper recalled. “The movie came out in 1960 and it was my favorite movie. Forty years later I got to be in the play.”

“Inherit The Wind,” written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, opens just after dawn on a July day that “promises to be a scorcher.”

The story centers around a schoolteacher who is on trial for teaching evolution — the theory that man evolved from lower primates such as monkeys — in his classroom, a violation of Tennessee’s Butler Law.

The lines are already drawn in this sleepy Southern town of Hillsboro, Tenn. Creationism or evolution? Religion or science?

The local minister’s daughter, a teacher named Rachel, visits her imprisoned colleague, Bert Cates, at the local jail. The Baltimore Herald newspaper has sent E. K. Hornbeck, the country’s most famous columnist, to cover the trial, along with the nation’s most famous trial lawyer, Henry Drummond to defend Bert.

The town is abuzz with the impending arrival of the prosecution’s lawyer, three-time Presidential candidate and self-proclaimed Bible expert Matthew Harrison Brady. It is clear from the “Read Your Bible” banner in the courtroom and the frequent singing of hymns that many of the townspeople are creationists — the religious belief that man was created, fully-evolved, by God — and are against Bert.

Gordy Handeland is directing the drama, and also plays Dunlap and Radio Man. Lori Larsen is the stage manager.

Cooper plays Drummond and Al Blumenshein plays Matthew Brady.

Richard McIntosh is cast as Meeker, Mark Place as the Rev. Brown, Krista Johnson as Rachel, Bill Hoy as Cates, Nancy Hockenberry as Mrs. Brady, Peter Torkelson as Howard, Mike Compton as the judge, Paul Burger as Sillers, Jay Paul as Hornbeck and Joe Harris as Bannister. Susan Torkelson and Shelly Compton are extras.

Handeland said one of the biggest challenges in producing the show was casting. “It’s a very heavy man show,” he pointed out.

But, he said, people should enjoy the show and the actors. They range in age from 11 (Peter Torkelson) on up. All are experienced actors; Torkelson has been in six plays already.

The cast comes from Albert Lea, Austin, Owatonna and Hollandale.

“It’s a great cast,” Handeland said.

Added Cooper, “It’s a show you can think about and discuss afterward.”

McIntosh said the audience will be able to see the stark contrasts between the time period in which the play was set and today.

“People can see how much the whole pendulum of religion and secularism has changed in the last 70 or 80 years,” he said.

“Inherit the Wind” will be presented at the Lighthouse Event Center, 638 Marshall St., Albert Lea, at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and at 2 p.m. Sunday.

Advance tickets are available at Tone Music in Albert Lea and at the Coffee House on Main in Austin for $12. They are $15 at the door. Student admission is $10 with a student I.D.