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Show C Y M C K Y A16 Sanpete Messenger-Sanpete Messenger/Gunnison Valley Edition M K Wednesday, June 24, 2009 Pageant (Continued from A16) MANTI—There is an old adage in show business that wise directors pay heed to: “Never work with children or animals.” By that standard, Mormon Miracle Pageant Director Laren Swenson might be the unwisest director of all. Of the pageant’s 930 cast members this year, nearly twothirds of them are children under the age of 18. Almost half of those are teenagers. But to hear Swenson talk about it, the old adage has it wrong. “They are the lifeblood of the pageant,” he says. “We couldn’t do this show without the youth.” For local children—and not necessarily only those who are LDS—being in the pageant isn’t just a summer tradition, but a rite of passage. It is the thing to do during the summer. “All the cool kids do it,” says 16-year-old Dakotah Hancock, who plays the part of Captain Moroni. “The peer pressure is to do it.” But being in the pageant is something kids do long before they hit those peer-pressurized teenage years. Over 200 of this year’s performers are between the ages of 1 and 10. Young children help fill the group scenes as early 1800s New Englanders, or as youths in the “Christ in America” scene, or as toddlers who “sang as they walked, and walked, and walked,” as the Primary song goes, alongside pioneer handcarts. They watch the rest of the pageant, hoping for the day when they can take up one of the major roles. “They absolutely fall in love with it,” Swenson says. Hidden from view of the audience behind the scenes while the pageant is underway, he says, “You will see them acting out every scene. You will see them doing Captain Moroni’s movements, or Zarahemnah’s, or the Young Joseph scenes.” As they get older, around age 12, many of them advance to other roles, though still as members of a group. The boys play warriors in Book of Mormon battle scenes. The girls take part in the brilliant finale of the angel chorus. As teenagers, some of them will get to play major roles. “Many of these kids figure out which part they want to play, and they come back year after year and study it and learn the actions until they get it,” Swenson says. “I can name specific kids who just ached for a leading part, and you look at them and say to yourself, ‘I just don’t know if it will ever happen.’ But the desire is strong enough that they do what they need to do, and they learn what they need to learn to get there.” One would think that so many children would make for a frenetic, hair-pulling experience for the adults charged with watching over them. But, says Swenson, “The amazing thing, for the most part, is how obedient most of them are.” There was that first Thursday night of performance last week when Swenson saw some of the pioneer children barefoot. “I don’t think pioneer children went barefoot very long,” he says at a cast meeting. But a moment later, L. Tom Perry, a member of the Church’s Quorum of Twelve Apostles, who is seated behind Swenson near the podium, whispers something to him. “Oh, it’s okay. I guess they did,” Swenson says, “His grandmother was one of them.” Swenson says for the most part, the kids behave. “Once in a while we get one or two that think they have a right that others don’t. But we just say, ‘Now, now, now—that’s not what we’re trying to do.’” The memories of former longtime assistant director Jane Braithwaite are similar. “I can’t think of one child who didn’t turn out right,” she says. “There may have been some that succumbed to the temptation to roll down Temple Hill during rehearsal, you know, but they shaped up after a little reprimand.” Braithwaite credits much My Jesus, My Jesus. —Laren Swenson’s recollection of a small child reacting to appearance of actor representing Jesus Christ. of children’s proper behavior to their parents. “There definitely does have to be discipline,” she says, “but we found the family unit is our biggest ally.” Families taking part in the pageant together account for many of the very youngest performers. “We always said children needed to be such-and-such an age. But there were some families that tried to handle even the tiny ones,” Braithwaite says. “Somehow they handled it. It took special parents to really work at it, because it isn’t easy.” One such family was the Westfalls, whose nine-month-old daughter Misha was one of the youngest to have ever been in the pageant, though she doesn’t remember it. At that time very young children were not supposed to be in the pageant. So the Westfalls smuggled her in, keeping her backstage until the “bonfire” scene, depicting pioneers in the dead of winter. On the soundtrack during that scene, a baby cries. The Westfalls handed Misha off to a friend, Gail Hyde, who was also in the scene and who bundled Misha up and cradled her. “Brother Hall [Ron Hall, the director of the pageant at that time] thought it was a great prop. He was really thrilled that Gail NICK MARSING / MESSENGER PHOTO Children in the “Christ in America” scene of the pageant are eager to gather around Jesus, played by Dannan Royal. brought her own prop and worked with to make it look like a real baby,” Valerie says. Misha has been in the pageant every year since, for 14 seasons, and this year is playing the role of Emma Smith. As the children in the pageant mature, so, too, do their antics. Especially—no surprise here—in the case of teenage boys. “We had some very wild moments in rehearsal,” Braithwaite says, remembering a certain time involving the scene depicting the battle between the Nephites and the Lamanites. “This goes way back. John Keeler would lead the Lamanites, and they’d come to practice with a flower. When they’d ‘die,’ they’d flop on the floor flat on their backs, and up would pop a posy. You never knew what to expect.” John Keeler now is an associate director for the pageant’s pioneer scenes. Nate Christensen, one of three current assistant directors called “battle masters” who work with the teenage warriors, says things haven’t changed. “Every year the big thing is that there’s always the Lamanities that try to rewrite Book of Mormon history,” Christensen says. To keep things from getting out of hand, he says, on the nights when they suspected horseplay, the directors themselves dress up and join the scene. “So if you see a pot-bellied, white-glowing, pasty, never-seenthe-sun farmer gut, that’s your battle master,” he says. There’s always the dying warrior who plays Superman, flinging himself down the hill to see how far he can get. “You have to discipline with a straight face. It’s impossible,” he says. There was the time years ago when Captain Moroni “scalped” Zarahemnah (talk about rewriting New Homes Priced to Sell!!!! Manti $186,000 NICK MARSING / MESSENGER PHOTO Children square dance in the “Bonfire” scene, which portrays the hardships of Mormon pioneers on the plains of the United States Midwest during cold winter months in the 1800s. Book of Mormon history) and was banned from the pageant for a time because of it. The incident is legendary. “It’s part of the culture of the warriors: the scalping of ’82, or whenever it was,” Christensen says. “We’re always on guard. We hear the kids trying to outdo that.” They also have a tendency to be a bit boisterous when they’re supposed to be quiet backstage. Christensen says, “All the other directors are like, ‘Get the warriors quiet.’” But then they go on the hill, and they look good. I don’t forget that they’re boys. But they’re also great spiritual warriors.” And though most children, at whatever age, when asked what they like about being in the pageant will respond with a variant of “it’s fun,” Christensen and others know it’s the spiritual aspect that gives it its rite-of-passage ambience. As an adult, Christensen has worked with LDS boys for many years. But with the pageant, he says, “I’m dumbfounded. You’ve got 100-130 youth—we’re talking teenage boys–who are eager and willing and volunteering to do this. You have these youth begging for costumes, begging to find a place to be in it. They want to do it. Usually we have to go begging to get them to sign up for other things, but with pageant, they’re there.” There’s got to be more than just “fun” at work. Part of it might be the feeling of taking part in history, or bringing it to life, or making it real. “It makes your religious history literal history,” Christensen says. “I think it makes a connection between history and the modern day.” Jane Braithwaite said almost the same thing. “What better way for a youngster to appreciate the past?” she asks, and tells the story of one young cast member for whom the pageant had a profound lesson during the bonfire scene on one particularly cold, rainy performance. The young man told her, “I didn’t understand what these pioneers went through before. It was cold. It was wet. It was miserable. “I have a home I can go to in half an hour,” says Braithwaite, “What did the pioneers have?” Braithwaite says such things leave lasting, even permanent, impressions. “I really believe it stays with them all their lives. I really do. I know it makes a tremendous difference,” she says. Present-day pageant director Laren Swenson, too, mentions how the pageant makes LDS religious history real for those who perform in the pageant, especially the children. “One of my favorite parts of the pageant is during that Christ in America scene, and it says that ‘they taught the children.’ And those children are just like homing pigeons. Wherever they are at on the hill, they run up to whoever is playing the Savior and when it’s over they run back.” Ironically, Swenson’s favorite story of a pageant child comes not from a pageant performer, but a spectator. “A young child was sitting on a mother’s lap. We came to that scene. I would say the child was 3 or maybe 4. The Savior appeared, and she just started reaching, and reaching and squealing, “My Jesus, my CELEBRATE JUNE DAIRY MONTH! Great for Low to Moderate Income Families!!! Pageant attendance down slightly Attendance for the 2009 edition of the Mormon Miracle Pageant is down slightly over the first three nights. the first two nights saw good, better-than-last-year attendance. But it rained steadily all day Saturday, and even though the rain stopped before the pageant began, the crowds had decided to stay away. Saturday’s count of 2,900 is the lowest ever recorded, showing that weather is probably still the deciding factor governing crowd attendance. Attendance Thursday Friday 2008 5,000 13,300 2009 6,700 15,200 C Y M K Saturday 7,200 2,900 Totals 25,500 24,800 Utah Housing Corporation is selling two new 5 bedroom/2 bath, 2700 sq/ft homes with quality touches found only in higher priced homes. 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