Producers finishing up new 'Nauvoo Pageant'

A new pageant portraying a pivotal time in LDS Church history is undergoing final development in Salt Lake City before the production is staged for audiences in Nauvoo, Ill., this summer.

Dubbed simply the "Nauvoo Pageant," it will replace a long-running production called "City of Joseph" in the small town that played a central role in the early history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The production is part of a yearlong celebration of church founder Joseph Smith's bicentennial birthday and the 175th anniversary of the faith's official organization in 1830. The pageant joins a host of other productions — all of them free to the public — produced by the LDS Church annually.

Director David Warner said the production has been designed to be "very much a part of what Nauvoo is," exemplifying the sacrifice of early church members who drained and settled what was formerly swamp land before building a temple to worship God.

The church recently dedicated a reconstructed temple in Nauvoo, a replica of the one that church founder Joseph Smith directed to be built there before his martyrdom in 1844. Replicas and restorations of early homes and businesses that made up the town during Smith's day have been under construction by the church for several decades, and the village draws tens of thousands of visitors annually.

The pageant will include a core cast of 20 actors with speaking parts and a supporting cast of 150 volunteer actors during each of the four weeks of its summer run. Participants for the core cast came from six different states and auditioned for their parts, Warner said.

Volunteer cast members applied online earlier this year. Some 1,700 applicants from 45 states and four different countries sought positions during the three-week application window, advertised through a letter sent from church headquarters to LDS wards and stakes. Producers were able to accept 600 of those, 150 to perform for one-week stints during each of the four weeks the production will run.

"We were overwhelmed with the response." Volunteers will pay their own travel, room and board in order to participate, Warner said, noting the wide "sweep of church membership" represented.

A team of eight writers and seven musicians, church members with professional experience, were asked to create the production by top LDS leaders, who have overseen production of the project. Auditions and rehearsals for core cast members have been under way at the Conference Center for several weeks.