When You're Here, We're Here!

Nauvoo Day 1

Learning a round dance 1st day.

 At 9 am on Monday morning we turn into this little Junior High school with this cool huge viking standing sentinel in the front and start our check-in with 22 other families that have come to this place from all over the US. We have all felt the spirit pulling us here, and I have that in my mind as we smile and greet one another for the first time - behind all these faces are stories.  We get packets, sign paperwork, stand in lots of lines and get our photos taken for our ID badges.  They waste no time in getting us dancing in the school gym, a traditional round dance and then a waltz. The morning is full of orientations, information and get-to-know you/team building activities.

There are vikings everywhere in the school.

After lunch, the "core cast" (the professional actors that are here are summer that play the lead rolls in the show) do a performance for us - they are crazy good - and the bag pipe band puts on a little parade that Jared gets to march in.  We meet our new district leader, a member of the core cast that is assigned to mentor our family. Our district leader's name is Malia, and she plays Leonora Taylor in the show. Before we came we had seen her on PBS and YouTube and so we are excited to meet her.

The volume of costumes is amazing!

That afternoon we are off to costuming. It is amazing.  We are separated into boys and girls and lead into a classroom full of racks of costumes. Costume women, with measuring tapes around their necks, size us up and hand us bodices and dresses to try on. Our district has been assigned to be farmers, and we are assigned the color brown.  After we receive our dresses we are handed petticoats from big plastic trash cans, shawls or cloaks from a big table, and bonnets from yet another.  We are costumed the shabbiest of all the cast, and while I'm a bit jealous to not see Chuck in a top-hat and tails, he is grateful to be in only a shirt and vest.

Each costume is hemmed and fit to each individual

That evening we drive into Nauvoo proper for the first time and we see the core cast perform the show for the first time. It is missing a lot because the family chorus is missing, but it is still wonderful and touching all at the same time.

Nauvoo Day 2

We start day two in a morning devotional at a church building. The bag pipe band is there in kilts, the brass band in uniforms, the work crew in dirty jeans, and we are there, in the chapel, in our shorts.  There is already a feeling of camaraderie among us, everyone is so open and kind.  Hymn singing reaches its true order, here, with these people.  The music swells in four part harmony and is sung with such vigor and spirit you feel as if you're hearing hymn singing for the first time, and everything up to this point has just been a sad imitation. We hear from both the Mission President's wife and the Temple President and his wife.

The core cast put the pageant on for us.

Then we go to the stage site.  We start with a safety lesson, don't jump off the stage, don't get your leg mangled in the lifts, drink lots of water, that sort of thing.  We are given little pink blocking books, that tell us what to do in every scene, where and when to enter, where to stand, where and when to exit, what to wear.  Having been a stage manager before, I fully appreciate how wonderful these books are! We study our books and take the stage as saints arriving in Nauvoo for the first time.  The music plays and we run up ramps onto the stage where there are 50 people with smiles and outstretched hands to greet us.  Talk about feeling wanted! Now just if we can get to our stage mark on time!

That afternoon we are inside at the school and are separated. Jared goes to a kids class (he has gone to the kids class a few times already and is having a great time), the girls are off to teen dancing and Chuck and I learn a waltz, the Virgina reel, and some circle dances. I drag Chuck to the front of all the lines and we volunteer for all the extra dances because I want to take full advantage of this opportunity; I don't want to stand in the back or be shy.  Chuck has such a great attitude and is super supportive, even though he is totally out of his comfort zone. We have a great time. I can't stop smiling and when the kids come back and show us their dances, they are smiling too, even Jared. At the end of every activity we have a talking session where we talk about our experiences and thoughts and impressions, and we apply gospel principals.  After the dance the choreographer asked, "What did you learn from that?" and I shouted out, "I can do it!"

Walking onto the stage for the picnic scene

In the evening we are back on the stage, working out where we move and when. We discover that dancing on a 20% incline is a bit different from dancing on a flat surface. We learn to make "levels" and how to zig zag across the stage, and moving with a motivation.  The Nauvoo Temple is right on the hill above the stage and I look up to it often and think of how great it is to be here, where my ancestors lived and worked, and to be able to remember and honor them.

Nauvoo Day 3

backstage the temple watches over us

Back to work on the hot stage in the morning, as we put more pieces of the show together. We often stop to talk about what is being presented, and about our own testimonies and how can we share those testimonies with our audience. They are trying to soften and change our hearts as much as they are trying to get us to move to the right place or in the right way.  In our district meetings we learn about giving only good fruit to our friends and family, meaning, we only say good things and we keep unhelpful criticisms inside.  The director tells us that we are not  putting on a play, but we are building Zion, and that Zion can only be truly built on this principle.  I realize that they have never said one negative thing to us, everything we do here in Nauvoo is "wonderful!!!", and then they ask us what we think we can do to make it even better.

In the afternoon we are back to the school to finish up learning the last of our dancing. It is hot but fun work.  A young lady is injured and we see a miracle happen right before eyes that brings most of us to tears. This place is amazing. Like we are really living in Zion.  On the way out of the rehearsal we are told that all our costumes are ready, so we go to the costume wing and get a whole trolley full of costumes to take home with us. I'm so totally amazed that they hemmed pants and dresses for a cast of 150 people in less than 48 hours.

Back onto the hot stage in the evening. More parts of the play are falling into place.That night a family from North Carolina, the Stricklands, invite us to meet them for ice cream and we have a fun visit with them after the rehearsal.

Nauvoo Day 4

The choreographer talks to the teens on stage

It's the 4th of July and we start the day by singing the national anthem. We have only worked on the show for two days and we do our first run through this morning. This is possible because how amazingly organized the staff is, and because over half the cast have been in the pageant before.  The other family in our district, the Barnes, have taken us under their wing, and they help us know what to do and where to go.  While on the stage you hear people counting out the steps and yelling things like "up!" "down!" "turn!".  There is a lot that is never explicitly said, but when you see the hundred other people on the stage do something, then you know to do it too.   Much of what is taught here is taught that way.  The next cast will get even less rehearsal time than we do, but they will learn from watching us. Unfortunately, this morning, the water pipe to the stage is accidentally dug up, and we have no bathrooms, no water and it is getting really hot so they let us go early.

Our district leader Malia has been sick and missed yesterday and today so at lunch we go with the Barnes and sing to her and give her a card. She seems glad to see us, and touched that we were thinking of her.

back stage (with our district brother Justin)

Singing rehearsal is after lunch, but we miss the first 45 minutes because we are getting our "hair checked".  We watched a video the first day about how to do 1840's hair, and we had to present ourselves with our hair to be checked.  After fluffing up our hair for two weeks for Footloose, we now have to make our hair as smooth and tight as possible.  Smooth buns were not meant for women with curly hair and Kaitlin's hair is too short, so she is given a day cap to wear throughout the show. Luckily we are farmers so our hair doesn't have to be perfect. In fact, the hair lady showed Chuck how to back comb his beard to make it more scruffy.

We do another complete run through this night. It is so hot we are all dripping, and that big, brown stage is like dancing on a frying pan,  but we try to be grateful that it's only in the 80's when some years it has been in the 100's.  We are let go early to celebrate the Fourth.  There are no fireworks in Nauvoo but we have heard that the actor that plays Brigham Young is going to light some fireworks off in the parking lot later that night.  All the core cast is also staying here at the Villas, so in the evening we are all gathered in the parking lot and see a grand display of fireworks. There are plenty of glow sticks and sparklers to go around and we all have a good time celebrating together.  There are probably about 100 of us there.

Nauvoo Day 5

It is another hot one this morning out in the sun. We start with dancing.  There are some Young Performing Missionaries that work here in Nauvoo and they dance in some of our dance scenes. They are there to make us look good. So we spend the morning working them into our routines. We also spend a lot of time working on the "street throwing" scene. Kaitlin and a partner, Andrew, have been assigned to throw this huge ribbon of fabric in the air to represent White Street and then stretch it across the stage and fasten it to the stage with velcro. 

Throughout the show we build this temple

At lunch we decide to drive to a nearby town to buy more snacks. I had underestimated how many snacks we needed to eat at all these rehearsals. We stop at the Wendy's for lunch and enjoy the fancy drink machine they have there that makes over 100 flavors.

In the afternoon we have a blocking meeting at the school, and while the rest of us are looking at slides of pictures of the stage with arrows, Jared is having a water party outside with the kids.  I had had a problem with my bodices being too tight and I went to pick them up from costumes.  They had finished the alterations in 24 hours. 

That brings us up to date to the present.  We have our first rehearsal with lighting today so our call time is an hour later, that is how I've had time to write this entry. We are having a great time. Even Jared is having fun. He is dancing, singing and taking part in all of the activities; he's even excited about it.  Chuck too, has taken all of this in stride and seems to be having a fun time.  We are learning so much, and the spirit is so strong and present in everything we do here.