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Laguna beach living art6/10/2023 Thirty to forty classic paintings and art pieces are selected each year to be featured and set designs begin right away. This year’s Pageant was helmed by Director Diane Challis Davy whose involvement began as a volunteer some 24 years ago. You see kids grow up, including our own,” continues Elaine. “We work with many of the same people every year. He’s been in the show every year since along with both of our sons.” Volunteering at the Pageant has been equated to a summer camp for adults that happens to include kids. “Harvey was the right height,” recalls Elaine, “they grabbed him right off the patio and put him into the cast. He is now 32.” Her husband, Harvey, was cast in 1996 as part of Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” work which has been the show finale since 1936. “We moved here from De-troit and got involved when our youngest was 9 years old. “Volunteering at the Pageant becomes a passion that you look forward to all year long,” shares Elaine Fleisher, a volunteer stage runner assisting cast members. This volunteer team is in addition to the set and supporting volunteers that keep the entire production flowing. As well, a full volunteer design and makeup crew creates the costumes and Styrofoam “heads” the artists follow for each cast member. Casting for the pageant begins in early January and members are chosen by actual size and characteristics in line with the images in the featured work of art. There are two sets of 150 cast members rotating one full week on and one week off for the duration of the Pageant each July and August. From the front orchestra pit to the backstage wardrobe and makeup rooms, the rotating side stages and the main sound stage which houses many of the elaborate hand-crafted set designs, the Bowl becomes a home away from home for many of the performers and volunteers. Tucked away in the hillsides of Laguna Canyon, the serene, 2,600 seat Irvine Bowl amphitheater was donated by James Irvine in 1940 out of his love for art thus giving a permanent home for the Pageant. In fact, as far as one can tell, Pageant of the Masters is the world’s only true full-scale living art production using real people to recreate historical art pieces on an outdoor stage. This “living pictures” art was so captivating that throughout the last near nine decades leading artists, narrators, make-up artists, composers and designers have grown the now “Pageant of the Masters” into one of the world’s most masterful recurring living art productions. THE BEDROCK OF LAGUNA BEACH’S PAGEANT OF THE MASTERSĪ retail clerk, a retired teacher, a lawyer, a young student on summer break, these are just a few of the statuses of the 300+ dedicated volunteers that make up the Pageant cast and stage crew at the legendary Pageant of the Masters living art experience held annually in Laguna Beach.Īs part of the Laguna Beach Festival of Arts which began in 1932, showcasing art as “living pictures” was incorporated into the Festival’s second year and was then titled “Spirit of the Masters Pageant”.
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