Nauvoo Pageant (rehearsals), the last three days

Not a lot notable has happened the last three days, and I've been too lazy to chronicle it anyway. So here goes.

Saturday: Rehearsal. But not much. It rained a good deal, and in the morning we met in the high school to run through some dances with the YPMs (No, I'm not telling you what the acronym means. You'll have to figure it out yourself.). Afterward, we sat at the feet of our directors and heard the story of old: the history of the Nauvoo pageant. We also learned about the music thereof—there are only three original themes in the music; all the others are hymn melodies. They listed a number of hymns used in the score, many of which I had noticed, but others of which I had not. Then we had copious free time, which was mostly wasted. And then a runthrough of the pageant, in light rainfall. Thereafter we lit sparklers and watched fireworks from across the Mississippi. It was foggy, which made the fireworks look really cool.

Sunday: Church. Their YSA class is actually somewhat functional, even though pageant members probably tripled its size. Elders quorum has a tradition of having each attendee introduce the person next to him, apparently at every meeting. I'd imagine that would get somewhat annoying at times when there aren't three zillion people in town for the pageant. In the evening we went to see the core cast perform "Our Story Goes On," which is a kind of cheesy musical revue with a story and a moral. I was less impressed with it this time than I was two years ago. But it was still enjoyable and at times touching. They did take many songs completely out of context, e.g., "Bring Him Home" from Les Miserables as a father's plea for his prodigal son, but they still fit.

Monday: We had a normal-type rehearsal in the morning and then had the day off until 7, when we were to meet for our final dress rehearsal. Have I explained the different casts? Here goes: The core cast consists of the people with speaking lines. They stay for the length of the pageant. There are five family casts, identified by colors, that rotate through, each performing in the pageant for a week. We're in the red cast, and on Monday the blue cast arrived. The blue cast will participate in the finale of the pageant and do a few stagecrew-like things for us while they learn the pageant. Then the yellow cast will come, followed by the green and gold casts. So we met the people in the blue cast who are in our district on Monday. So, dress rehearsal went just fine. Although the blue cast wasn't very good at following the conductor during The Spirit of God. How hard is it to follow a bouncing flashlight? We finally had actual houses on the sides of the stage, which was a nice change. Afterward I was unsure of whether I should go visit with people in the audience, so I kind of wandered around until some nice blue cast members offered me referral cards. I went with them to help convince others that they were in the cast, as they had not received their costumes yet. We talked with an LDS family from Georgia. They couldn't think of anyone to refer, since they had just moved there and only knew the people they had met in their ward. Then I went home, read the 17th Police Beat Roundtable, ate scrambled eggs, and wrote this.