After 4 decades, Easter Pageant still adds new sights

Mar. 20—It started in 1938 as a simple Easter sunrise service and evolved into the world's largest of its kind.

And this week, the Mesa Arizona Temple's annual Jesus the Christ Easter Pageant will begin a nine-day run at 8 p.m. Wednesday, March 20, to Saturday, March 23 and Tuesday, March 26, to Saturday, March 30 on the temple's grounds, 455 Main Street, Mesa.

Barring bad weather, the free 70-minute production of the life of Jesus Christ likely will fill the over 9,500 folding seats set up by volunteers well before curtain time.

The official history of the pageant's precursor was the sunrise service, which continued for 30 years with singing and a brief narration of the life of Christ. In 1975, the pageant was born — and has played every year except between 2018-22, when the temple and grounds underwent a major renovation.

With a cast of 470 people — as well as some animals appropriate to the time period — pageant organizers are never content with letting the finely tuned production simply be repeated.

Every year brings something new and this year is no exception, said pageant Artistic Director Jenee Prince.

The pageant's return in 2022 after the three-year renovation-related hiatus brought a new sound system, new stage, LED screens and a script and score rewritten under the direction of Gilbert composer Rob Gardner and recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra.

This year, Prince said, there are some new sets and some new costumes — and a host of new cast members.

"We've added a few things to our set and it will look different. There are some enw elements that will add more color," said Prince, who is in her 13th year as artistic director. "There are some more elements to it some more color."

"We have a lot of new people this year," she continued. "I don't remember a year when we've had so many brand-new cast members and that has brought like a new excitement. It's been really great to help them discover what they hope to get out of this experience and help them and just get to know them and their insights and just their desire to be telling the story."

"We have a lot of new people in our main roles and a lot of new people in our multitude as well. So it's just fun, it breathes new life into the pageant and always nice to get different perspectives and to have other people have these great experiences as well."

While selected in December and given a copy of the soundtrack and other materials they needed, the cast members didn't start acting and singing with each other until March 1.

They signed up knowing that aside from school or work in the daytime, their nights were taken for the entire month by rehearsals and, of course, the actual presentation this week and next.

"We tell them what role they are and they become familiar with the music," Prince explained. "We give them their speaking parts. And then we met with them on the first of March and the next day we had a big huge rehearsal with our full cast where we did the big scenes — what we call our multitude scenes, and they're all on stage together at those times."

Next came breaking down the individual scenes and Prince said last week "we're still putting this puzzle together," she said without hesitation when asked, "By next Wednesday, we'll have it all done and it'll be up and running and we are so excited."

Prince has been part of the pageant for over 20 years and is artistic director for her 13th consecutive year.

Does it ever get old?

"People have asked me about that a lot," Prince said. "I think the truth is always truth. And good. Music is always you know, I mean, it's just, it's beautiful. And these people are so amazing. And the truth never gets old. And Easter never gets old; it's an eternal story. So how could that get old for me?

"And then the people, just that these people are so incredibly amazing. And just the willingness that they have to give up their time and tell the story is inspiring to me. And so no, it does not get old. It's inspiring."