Model Families : Laguna Pageant Literally Gets Parents, Kids Into Art
Have you ever wished that:
1) You could find a way to spend more time with your kids.
2) You could get them to sit still and be quiet for even a minute or so.
If so, you just might find your solution at Laguna Beach’s Irvine Bowl.
That’s where, every summer, dozens of parents and children slather their faces with makeup; dress up as statues, mosaics, bas-relief sculptures, Victorian Valentines, surfers, geishas and dolls; walk on stage in front of hundreds of people, and remain absolutely rigid for 90 seconds. And, they say, they get quite a kick out of it.
It has been that way at the annual Pageant of the Masters since the unique production’s inception 56 years ago, says pageant spokeswoman Sally Reeve. The pageant, in which works of art are re-created on stage by living models, has been a consistent draw for families who want to punctuate their summers with something a bit more memorable than a couple of weekends at the beach.
Husbands and wives may work in makeup or costuming, children may help out backstage or entire families may appear in the production as models. The only requirements are that they fit into the costumes, are able to hold still for the 90 seconds their set piece is exposed to the audience and don’t expect to be paid for it. The cast and most of the offstage positions are voluntary.
“There’s a little bit of ham in everybody, and here there are no lines or parts to learn,” Reeve said. All they have to do is keep still. And we encourage the families to try out. We think it serves two purposes: It’s a healthy thing to do together in the summertime, and members of a family can car-pool together.”
For the O’Donnell family, that’s a big pool. Both parents and the couple’s three children are all involved in the production. All but the mother of the clan, Denise, are working at the pageant for the first time.
“When I was 16, I was an usher for two years,” Denise said. “We just moved back to Mission Viejo (from Riverside County) two years ago, and this year I asked the kids if they wanted to come down and audition. They all made it. It’s pretty unusual to have three people in the same family who are the right size for the costumes.”
The O’Donnell children appear in three different set pieces: Ryan, 10, is a figure in “Winter Pastime,” by Currier and Ives; Kelle, 9, plays a geisha in “Matsukaze,” a 19th-Century Japanese painting by Eishi Chobunsai, and Meghan, 8, portrays the figure of a winged goddess as part of a reproduction of an ancient Egyptian necklace. Meghan also has substituted for absent cast members in other works.
Denise regularly mans the backstage coffee bar, and her husband, Mac, has worked as a substitute model, portraying an Indian kachina doll.
None of the family members, Denise said, “had any idea of what (the pageant) was when I brought it up. But when they sat out in the audience and watched people up on stage doing what they had just gotten through doing, they couldn’t believe it.”
There are two separate casts for the pageant, and they appear on alternate weeks for seven days at a stretch in order to give the members a few evenings off. However, Denise said, the time crunch still exists, what with family activities and their move to a new house in Laguna Hills.
“It takes up a big amount of time,” she said. “But the girls especially like the modeling and the acting. All of them stand there perfectly still. I wondered at first if they’d have the maturity, but I’ve never seen them move. It’s a bit taxing, but they love it. I wouldn’t have traded it for anything. They say they want to do it next year.”
Licia Harvey, her husband, Randy, and their 8-year-old daughter, Rachael, all landed parts in this year’s pageant, after the parents had worked in the production last year. Licia appears in “Tiffany Circus,” a reproduction of a design by Gene Moore; Randy is part of the set piece of “Carnival,” by Gaston Doin, and Rachael poses in “Matsukaze.”
“It was so much fun last year--we wouldn’t have thought of not coming back this year,” Licia said. “I’m a home mom, and for me it’s great to get out and talk to adults and do something other than make peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches.”
Rachael was the only one of the three Harvey children to be cast in the pageant--the other two were not the right size for the remaining parts--but, Licia said, the entire family comes to Irvine Bowl on performance nights.
“All the kids do really well here,” she said. “They play games backstage and everyone kind of looks out for them.”
Mary Pat Straw of Irvine, heavily made up for her part in Maxfield Parrish’s “Garden of Allah,” said that when her 11-year-old daughter, Avery, was cast in the pageant four years ago, she and her husband, Griff, would use those evenings to “go out and have this nice date together.” Now, however, both she and Griff are cast members themselves, along with their daughter. Avery appears in “Matsukaze” and as a substitute in Monet’s “Boat at Giverny,” and Griff is a character in the traditional “Last Supper” piece, a role he has played for three years.
“It’s really fun and really different,” Mary Pat Straw said. “And it’s a way to become involved in the community.”
