Hold Still: You’re in the Pageant : Volunteer Models Measured, Photographed for Art Colony’s Annual Tableaux

Few stage productions actually set out to cast actors who freeze in front of an audience, but they were the only kind in demand at auditions held Saturday in Laguna Beach’s Irvine Bowl.

It was an open casting call for the 56th annual Pageant of the Masters, the Laguna Beach spectacle in which sculptures, paintings and other artworks are reproduced on stage using live models who hold their poses perfectly still.

On Saturday evening, the first few hundred volunteers lined up at the Irvine Bowl (auditions continued Sunday and remain open), to be measured and photographed and to meet pageant director Glen Eytchison and his staff. Unlike other casting calls, the pageant’s was conducted with a minimum of tension--applicants weren’t even asked to hold still.

“We cast by size, not by talent,” said Sally Reeve, the pageant’s spokeswoman. “Because they (the cast) don’t really have to do anything.”

Two complete casts of 145 members each will eventually be selected, Reeve said. They will appear in alternate weeks during the pageant’s summer run, July 7 to Aug. 27, although rehearsals will begin later this month, according to Eytchison.

He said this year’s show will present the standard pageant mix of familiar works and exotic pieces. Works slated for the show range from an ancient Etruscan fresco to a specially commissioned painting of surfers, titled “Pier Shot,” by Laguna Beach artist Ken Auster.

Nancy Shirkani, the pageant’s casting director, said she is confident she will be able to fill all the roles this year. Some works are already partially cast, such as Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” which is the traditional finale of the pageant and features many longtime participants in the famous banquet scene.

Others, though, are expected to present more of a challenge. “The nude bronzes will be hard to cast,” Reeve said.

“Tall, slim gals are always a problem,” Shirkani said.

Applicants said they were drawn to the pageant because of the camaraderie of its participants as well as the opportunity to take part in a major Orange County cultural event.

“I think any time people love art so much that they want to come together and celebrate it in this way, it’s wonderful,” said Sandy Bettger, 36, of Westminster.

Nine-year-old Lisa Mirallegro of Irvine expressed a similar sentiment: “It’s just an extra fun thing to do. You get to be in a famous art picture that’s blown up real big,” she said.

The one pageant participant with a speaking role agreed: “It’s a painless art lesson. There’s nothing stodgy or dull about it,” said Thurl Ravenscroft, the pageant’s sonorous narrator, perhaps best known for giving voice to cornflakes mascot Tony the Tiger in television commercials.

Ravenscroft, 74, enters his 16th season as the pageant’s voice. He was on hand to greet applicants and observe the auditions. Echoing other pageant officials, he remarked, “Size is super-critical.”

Although the pageant prides itself on consistency from year to year, its directors are in a unique position to judge the inhibitions--and exhibitionist tendencies--of Orange County; the application form asks: “If appropriate, would you pose nude?”

Shirkani said that 50% of applicants are willing to pose nude today, while Reeve estimated that only 35% would have agreed to do so 10 years ago. The pageant has featured nude models since 1934, she said.

The casting director credited the decrease in bashfulness to the proliferation of health clubs and “the exercise trend.”

“The young people will generally say ‘No,’ but when they get into their 20s and 30s, people say yes,” Shirkani said.

“At that age, they hope you’ll ask.”