Music, dance and drama combine in living history presentations during the annual Angels on the Bluff, presented Friday and Saturday at the Natchez City Cemetery.

Famous and not-so-famous characters come alive near their gravesites as actors portray through first-person narrative the characters&8217; Natchez experiences.

From 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. the Angels on the Bluff tours take place at 15-minute intervals, with transportation provided to the cemetery by shuttle buses from the Natchez Visitor and Reception Center, 640 S. Canal St.

For actors Ruthie Coy and Ralph Jennings, the chance to tell the story of Clarice Scott &8220;Crissie&8221; Miller is exciting because of their family connections to her.

Coy, portraying her grandmother, Ruth Audley Beltzhoover, wears 1930s-era clothes from her grandmother&8217;s closet &8212; clothes Beltzhoover would have worn during the years she and others were establishing the Natchez Pilgrimage.

Jennings, portraying Miller&8217;s husband, Sam, is in attire appropriate to an earlier period. Crissie Miller was his grandfather&8217;s sister, his great-aunt.

Both Coy and Jennings admire Miller for her dedication to what she always referred to as her two separate families &8212; her own family and the family of her employers.

&8220;She raised three generations of our family, including my grandmother,&8221; Coy said.

Jennings said he will recall his great-aunt&8217;s pride in her heritage.

Burnley Cook&8217;s calliope music and banjo and other strings from Terry Trovato, Tim McGivaren, Mickey Davis and Scott Nisula set the tone for the enactments, which are scattered about the rolling hills of the cemetery, considered one of the most beautiful in the South for its terrain, old trees and plants, statuary and iron fencing.

Martha Bahin Hootsell Leonard portrays her mother, the well-known dance instructor, Martha Bahin Hootsell, whose triumphs included choreographing the popular Pilgrimage-season tableau portraying John James Audubon as a dance master.

Leonard will wear an original costume from that tableau and perform from the Audubon dance.

Other characters in the lineup include these:

Cora Wirz Perrin, the only child of Capt. Henry Wirz, the commander of the Confederate prisoner of war camp known as Andersonville, will be portrayed by Patty Killelea.

Corp. Bill Fulton was the great scout of the Army of Northern Virginia and close friend of Jeb Stewart. Rusty Jenkins will portray Fulton. Stewart will make a surprise appearance, portrayed by Chuck Mayfield on horseback.

Swartz Carson, the widow of a famous concert pianist, will be portrayed by Estelle Mockbee.

William Storrow Lovell was the son-in-law of Gen. John Quitman of Monmouth. Charlie Vess will portray Lovell.

Capt. T.P. Leathers, the famous steamboat captain, will be portrayed by Bryant Reed Jr.

Rufus Case, a surprise character, will be portrayed by Ken Attenhofer.

Tickets, on sale at the Visitor Reception Center, are $15 and must be purchased in advance, said Don Estes, one of the organizers of the event.

Tickets will have a specific time for tour. Ticket-holders should arrive at the Visitor Center for boarding buses 30 minutes before ticket time to ensure arriving at the cemetery on time for the tour, Estes said.