Posing as This Painted Lady Is Mixed Blessing for Volunteer

The good news for Elizabeth Ahern: She’s landed a plum role as a volunteer model in the Pageant of the Masters.

The bad news? She’s a prostitute. A naked prostitute. With boiled-pink skin, a misshapen head, pointed knees and hands the size of oven mitts.

Whoever said “You oughta be in pictures” never posed in a Picasso.

Ahern, 17, of Mission Viejo, isn’t really naked, thanks to a body suit and foam-rubber appendages, and her face is hidden behind a mask. But she was taken aback when she learned she was cast in “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon,” a 1907 Picasso work set in a brothel.

“I told my mom, and she said, ‘ “Not my daughter,’ ” Elizabeth recalled. But the work has grown on her and her mother.

“It’s . . . interesting,”’ Judy Ahern said. Her daughter was more effusive. “I started out wondering how they were going to do this, but now I’m happy I’m in it,” she said.

A good attitude helps because the show depends on teamwork. Of the 500 volunteers participating this year, 300 are cast members who work a week on and a week off from July 7 to Aug. 28. Children and adults are given roles according to height and body type; this year’s youngest cast member is 5.

Some performers arrive as early as two hours before the show to don their gear. When the curtain rises, they must remain still, even though they might feel hot or itchy in the sometimes heavy costumes and makeup or body paint.

Elizabeth toughs it out because she loves the piece she’s in.

“It’s such an interesting picture,” she said. “It’s so abstract, but tasteful. It’s Picasso, and that makes it exciting.”