Nauvoo Pageant (rehearsals), day 4

We ran straight through the pageant twice today. I wanted to do it again, but no one agreed with me. I don't know why. I mean, it was only 9:15 PM!

At 7 AM we learned to build the onstage temple, which is a complicated process almost, but not quite, entirely unlike building an actual temple. This temple is essentially two-dimensional, with a façade consisting of a quilt. Basically, a connected series of six posts is rotated up through the stage to stand vertically as a backdrop. Upon this foundation three tall frame-chunks are added, locked in place with two pins. A separate tower with the tower part of the temple is rotated up as the façade is lifted. Then about five minutes after it's finally finished we just drop the whole thing back down behind the stage. I get to do my part to make the stage unsafe by removing the rear restraining rails before the temple is raised or lowered.

Then we ran through the pageant. It went reasonably well, and we were even 8 hours ahead of schedule. Woohoo!

After lunch (and a nap) we went to the high school gym and carefully reviewed the blocking of the show on a powerpoint. This was a good idea. Then the costume people came and told us some things to do and some things not to do. For instance, your waist is not right above your hips. It is where you bend. So wear your pants around your waist. Yeah. Also, our stage is not solid. Indeed, there are many work crew member who have to be under the stage. And the stage has holes in it that they need to look up through. So you need to make sure that they don't see anything you wouldn't want them to see, if you get my drift. (Apparently, a couple of years ago, the young women decided not to wear petticoats or bloomers, and the young men in the work crew got around to keeping a count of red panties versus blue panties. Yeah.)

Then we did the whole pageant thing again. It was cool. Yeah.