Pageant of the Masters’ 'builder' set provides peek behind the curtain

Dan Duling and Butch Hill, from left, stand in front of a piece featured as the builder set in the Pageant of the Masters.

By Andrew TurnerStaff Writer

Sept. 1, 2023 1:33 PM PT

Without an audience, the show might not have gone on.

The masses, an essential element, have filed into the Irvine Bowl nightly this summer as the Pageant of the Masters has celebrated 90 years of its living picture show in Laguna Beach.

Through the decades, the Pageant of the Masters has staged an elaborate ruse, captivating crowds with the seemingly two-dimensional reproductions of art.

What some first-time attendees fail to realize, at least until the show puts together one of the artworks piece by piece in front of their eyes, is that humans — made up and in costume — are being placed into the frame.

This peek behind the curtain, revered internally as “the builder,” awakens the audience to the nature of tableaux vivant, as the Pageant casts volunteers into works their measurements will allow. The requirement of the participating volunteers is to hold their position silently for the duration that their set is on stage.

Of the traditions of the Pageant of the Masters, the builder might be second only to the show’s finale piece, Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.” The late Don Williamson, a former director of the Pageant, first brought the builder to the stage in 1966 with Winslow Homer’s “Breezing Up.”

That work has returned to the stage in recent years, the crowd getting a chance to see cast members loaded into an elevated boat before it was brought up against the backdrop.

“When a magician gets skilled enough, they can essentially show you how the trick is done, and then when the lights change, the trick still works,” said Dan Duling, now in his 43rd year as scriptwriter for the Pageant. “The audience, this summer in particular, has been thrilled with our recreation of ‘Oyster Gatherers of Cancale,’ by John Singer Sargent because it is a very dramatic reveal.

“You watch the elements coming together, and you begin to see the image start to emerge from what essentially looks like a lot of very obviously manufactured elements that do not look, in any way, realistic. It is that final element of adding the proper flat lighting that allows all of the detailing to be fully revealed with the proper coloration that your eye is surprised and pleased by the final result.”

The builder has been shown early on in the production. Staff and volunteers agree it draws a resounding round of applause once attendees see the finished product.

“That lighting in that frame, all the big, larger sets travel behind that frame,” said Butch Hill, the Pageant’s technical director. “That frame’s adjustable vertically, so it’s 10 feet high, but we can crop in the painting depending on the size of the painting. All the lighting is built into that, and that helps us eliminate shadows and create the two-dimensional effect. Any shadows that we want are painted-on shadows.

“What kind of makes the builder special is when the set is rolling down into its position, we’ve got either a blue light or a red light, something to make it look monochrome, kind of quashes out all the color of the set. As it’s rolling down and stops, our cast members are coming in from the wings to load into the set, and the audience gets to see all this action, but then once the set rolls down to that frame and the lights go dark for a moment, the lighting that we put on the set to make it look real comes up.”

The trick of the light receives audible gasps, said Madison Muhonen, who has been cast in the builder twice, including this year’s show.

“I always hear oohs and ahhs every night,” said Muhonen, 28, of Orange. “People don’t even know that it’s real people. I walk on stage, and then when the lights turn on, the audience is like, ‘Oh, my gosh!’”

The Pageant of the Masters staged its “Art Colony: In the Company of Artists” show for the final time on the night of Aug. 25. The recreation of “Oyster Gatherers of Cancale” featured five volunteers, including Tustin‘s 5-year-old Jack Cherry.

Jack has taken after his mother, Taylor, whose debut in the Pageant took place in the same piece as a kid. While staying up way past his bedtime to fulfill his role, Jack said he likes “holding still,” as well as making friends and playing games backstage.

Butch Hill, technical director, and Dan Duling, script writer stand in front of "Oyster Gatherers" by John Singer Sergeant.

“I was in the Pageant when I was younger, and this was my first piece,” Taylor said. “The painting he was in, ‘Oyster Gatherers [of Cancale]’ by John Singer Sargent, was the first piece I was ever in when I volunteered as a kid, and I was 9. … I remember when we auditioned this year, thinking, ‘It would be so cool if one of my kids got to be in the same picture I was in, and then when he did, it was just a really nice surprise.”

While the builder is a reveal of the magician’s secrets, there is little explanation for the spell the Pageant casts on its youngest volunteers to stand stationary.

“If you had seen Jack on the patio running around and jumping, he’s so animated and he’s so social, and I’m thinking, ‘There’s no way this little 5-year-old boy is going to hold still. There’s no way,’” Taylor added. “My older son, yes, for sure he can do this, but Jack, I’m always holding my breath, and every night, he’s wiggling up until the last second, and then the lights come on, and it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is the longest he’s held still since the day he was born.’”

Pageant of the Masters’ ‘builder’ set provides peek behind the curtain

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