Every summer I look for a new adventure. I figure if I am going to be a teacher, and I am going to be single, then I might as well live it up! This year I applied to be in the Hill Cumorah Pageant in Palmyra, New York. Even with no theatrical background, I was accepted! I left on my adventure on the 4th of July.
I spend the night in Rochester, New York, then headed to the Hill Cumorah the next day. When I got there I met my cast team - a group of about 20 AMAZING young single adults. We spent a lot of time together over the next two weeks, so we were glad we liked each other so well!
After dinner and a devotional we headed out to a huge field for casting. The women were taught a dance and then assigned parts based on their abilities. I. do. not. dance. I really have no coordination. I was terrified. I was not picked in the first group. Or the second. Or the third. I seriously think that I did the dance at least 40 times (it was short) finally, a kind man came over and said, "You look like you are trying really hard!" At which point I (very tiredly) nodded, and took the part he gave me with a great deal of gratitude!
I was assigned three parts in the Pageant.
1. Harvest Worker. In this scene I worked as a fisher. I had a net and was "catching" fish.
2. New World Multitude. There is a part in the Book of Mormon where Christ comes down and teaches the people in the Americas. The whole cast (all 700 people) are in this scene. It is amazing.
3. Nephite Campfire Dance. Even after all of that, I got a dancing part. Can you believe it?!? It turned out okay, though. I became a wicked Nephite in the end, and then I would die. It was very dramatic.
Within 3 hours all 700 members of the cast were assigned parts. No one knew what they would be before that time, which is pretty incredible! We picked up all of our bags and headed to a local college where we would stay for the next two and a half weeks. I was lucky and ended up with the greatest roommates a girl could hope for!
The next week flew by in a whirlwind of organized chaos. There was very little time for sleep as we pulled together a show with 700 cast members and 200 crew members in less than a week. Truly miraculous. Bright and early the next morning practices started. They looked something like this:
It really was very well organized chaos. Though there were practices often (I think I had two days with practices pretty much back to back until late in the evening) there were slow moments where we did other things.
We climbed the Hill Cumorah often. And we made new friends along the way.
*This is my cute "foreign" friend, Tiffany. She is from Canada, so I would give her a hard time about being foreign. We ended up in line by each other at registration, were in the same cast group, and roommates as well. We became fast friends, you will see LOTS of pictures of her in my pageant pictures. She is great!
We found ways to sneak naps in between practices, anywhere we could find.
This picture is my favorite because it looks like we are fighting over the peanut butter cookies. Tiffany was really just trying to help me get them open, but it cracks me up!
We played lots of games, had lots of fun, and became known for our REALLY awesome run.
We helped set up and wash thousands of chairs for the audience who would come and see our show the next week.
And we made friends with the cute 11-year-old girls who had their group tent next to ours. They were darling, and helped me look forward to teaching fifth grade.
We did all sorts of jobs. Like taking out garbage, cleaning trays, and serving lunch.
We had "Sunblock" parties each morning before we headed out into the heat wave that hit New York.
On a very exciting day we finally got to go to the costuming department and get our costumes for the show! I fell in love with mine! The colors were gorgeous, it was super comfortable, and I really just liked it. Stay tuned for pictures.
We were told that before each show we would go out into the audience and talk to people about what the show is, welcome them, and share scriptures. We prepared for this time by classes with the local missionaries and personal study time. Tiffany and I also took some time to figure out what poses we were going to do when people asked for our picture. This was a favorite.
We ate lots of really, really good food. They worked us HARD, but wow, they fed us WELL!
And then, of course, we practiced some more (That is me in the green! I am tending to a hurt Nephite!)
The days were very long, and very hot. However, they were also filled making great memories while making new friends and preparing for a wonderful show!
*Want to know more about the Hill Cumorah Pageant? Click HERE.
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