After the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the Pageant of the Masters, its director Diana Challis Davy worried it might never reopen.
“It caused me to think about what makes the pageant exist,” she said on Thursday, July 8, a day after the Laguna Beach show that recreates near-identical replicas of famous artworks with live actors opened with this year’s “Made in America” theme. “To a great extent, it’s because we have volunteers who are willing to give up their summer. I realize now that their enthusiasm is still there.”
The cast is divided into two groups of 150 that rotate each week. The volunteers, wearing costumes, makeup and headpieces, pose in the artworks, frozen for 90 seconds, as narrator Richard Doyle provides the story backed by an orchestra. The pageant typically draws more than 200,000 attendees each year. Besides the pandemic, the pageant has only gone dark one other time during World War II.
“It’s a very big relief to be back,” Challis Davy said. “I thought the existence of the pageant was in doubt.”
In April, Challis Davy and her team came back. In May, work to get the show’s artworks put together began.
“Made in America: Trailblazing Artists and Their Stories” was actually the show Challis Davy prepared for 2020. With the theme, she focused on artists who lived in America and were inspired by the country’s freedoms. In this summer’s show, she introduces these artists through the magic of living pictures better known as “tableaux vivants.”
“I had a gut instinct that 2020 would be a rough year with the news media, politics and the divisions,” she said about coming up with the theme in late 2019. “I knew we as Americans needed to feel good about our artists and heritage and have pride in what they’ve done. I thought we needed that to feel proud again.”
Challis Davy starts the show with the pageant orchestra playing the National Anthem. At the same time, the American flag is raised on a hillside near the Irvine Bowl, the outdoor auditorium surrounded by coastal sage-filled hillsides where the pageant is put on. The flag is lit up and displayed on a 1940s-era pole.
To Challis Davy’s recollection – this is her 25th season – the patriotic song has never been part of the show. But it is something she has long thought about doing.
“I thought it would be beautiful,” she said. “And that people would appreciate the music and the sentiment and take all the politics out of it.”
After the flag is raised, the show starts with living pictures of Revolutionary-era paintings that include “Passage of the Delaware” by Thomas Sully and “The Declaration of Independence” by John Trumbull. But, before the show continues, Doyle holds a sort of fireside chat that sets the tone. He makes clear that those in attendance shouldn’t expect the show to address recent national controversies.
“This is a show about artwork, and it’s from the heart,” Challis Davy said.
“Our staff and volunteers are so happy and grateful to be able to perform again,” she added. “Everyone involved is determined to do all we can to make sure our audiences experience thrills, amazing and inspirational stories, beautiful music and extraordinary living pictures under the stars.”
The show is divided into two acts: the first one is an hour-long, the second runs for 33 minutes. Challis Davy’s only changes were cutting three pieces for which the musical underscoring hadn’t been completed.
Artists highlighted this summer include American masters such as Winslow Homer, Mary Cassatt, Norman Rockwell, Daniel Chester French, Luis Jimenez and John Nieto.
Among Challis Davy’s favorites is a rock ‘n’ roll-themed package paired with paintings by Nieto, who concentrated on Native American tribal themes and indigenous wildlife. These include “Three Buffalo Dancers,” “Two Fancy Dancers/Hoop Dancer,” and “Fancy Dancer with Flag.”
“I love the package and the whole presentation,” she said. “The tempo, the visuals and the great story.”
A favorite sculptural piece is the Lincoln Memorial, created by Daniel Chester French in Marble between 1916-1922.
Another is the recreation of a photo by Dorothea Lange accompanied by two songs written by Woody Guthrie. The photo illustrates the heartache of the Great Depression. The tableau vivant is followed by a recreation of a brightly colored Work Projects Administration mural that celebrates the resiliency of the American can-do spirit.
Not to be overlooked, Challis Davy said, is music by George Gershwin, Irving Berlin and Louis Armstrong.
Also featured this year is a tribute to photographer Matthew Rolston, whose exhibit called “Art People: The Pageant Portraits” is displayed at the Laguna Art Museum.
In 2016, Rolston was granted access to photograph and produce a body of original artwork based on portraits of the volunteer cast members of the pageant.
Each January, the pageant holds a casting call to match up community volunteers with the selected artwork. Casting is heavily determined by body measurement to ensure each cast member matches the scale of the figure in the tableaux. But, because the cast was selected more than a year ago, Challis Davy and her staff were challenged when “some of the young people had grown too tall.”
One painting, “Breezing Up” by Winslow Homer, had to be completely redone.
Those originally cast were put into a costumed Army Brigade that appears on the hillside during the First Act.
“Many who didn’t fit tableau costumes got real costumes,” Challis Davy said. “We didn’t have a lot of time to re-cast; we had to get the show back up.”
And, as always, Challis Davy relies on tradition for the closing piece.
Since 1935, that has always been Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic fresco “The Last Supper.”
“The patrons adore it,” she said. “It’s our signature piece.”
