British Pageant

There are two pageants going on here on alternating nights, the British Pageant and the Nauvoo Pageant. The British Pageant is a modified version of one that's been performed every four years in Chorley, England. It celebrates the Restoration being taken to the British Isles and tells of some of their trials when the Prophet asked them to come to Nauvoo. Set in England to start, it shows events there with the missionaries: lives being changed, people hungry for the message of the Gospel, and Benbow Farm conversions. 

 

     

One of two signs on either side of the stage. This is for the British Pageant, the other is for the Nauvoo Pageant.

 

At the beginning, they had flagbearers march on the stage, carrying flags representing the various countries in and around the British Isles. Then they developed stories about historical and fictional people.

    

Dancing around the Maypole

A rally in London

                              

                                         One of the groups getting ready to sail to America

After the new members made the decision to leave their homes and too often some family members, they faced a rough ship passage and then different problems with crossing by land. Many precious lives were lost during their travels. 

At the end of this pageant, they asked all the modern-day missionaries who were interested and available to join the cast on the stage at the end. Dave has done that several times. Arline went to watch the pageant once but didn't hobble up to the stage on her crutches to squawk (her voice is back after a fashion now, but she can't hit the notes with any kind of accuracy). As the cast starts to sing "Come, Come ye Saints," the missionaries head toward the stage. Then they sing "Called to Serve" as they walk onto the stage and some climb stairs. The next song is "Then Say what is True" and end with "Redeemer of Israel." The songs are individual, but sung like a medley, one flowing into the next. The director stands about 50 feet off stage. The audience can't see her, but she has a lighted end to her baton so the cast and missionaries follow the "firefly" baton.

Dave is in the middle, just left of center (below the lady in the goldenrod blouse)

As we understand it, the support casts change every week for four weeks. We've heard different reports about the main cast members, but it sounds like they've got a small core cast, probably for the speaking parts. The support cast consists of a lot of locals and others who want to participate, and it changes every week. People come the first week and run the country fair (more on that in next week's post) and rehearse. The second week they perform and another group comes in to run the fair and rehearse. There are four weeks of this. We think they did it the same way years ago when Arline's parents served in the Primary for the Pageant, but we're not sure if they had two different programs back then. Some people are in both shows, but we don't know if they all are. At any rate, it's amazing that they can put on such a great performance in such a short time for just a week. No shows on Sundays or Mondays or under certain weather conditions (like lightning or drowned-rat rainstorms). 

The audience faces the stage with the Nauvoo Temple as a backdrop on the bluff up and behind the stage. The temple is dark (the cleaning crews work in the interior of the temple until after the pageant so no light comes through the temple windows during the performance). The pageants end with the temple being lit up during the closing scene and songs.