Hill Cumorah Pageant
Cast members perform in an early scene from the Hill Cumorah Pageant. The Hill Cumorah Pageant is ending after 84 years. Photo by Kenneth Mays, courtesy of Church News.All rights reserved.This story appears here courtesy of TheChurchNews.com. It is not for use by other media.
By Sydney Walker, Church News
After 84 years, the Hill Cumorah Pageant is ending. The pageant, which featured scenes from the Book of Mormon and was performed each year on the hillside next to the Hill Cumorah Visitors’ Center in Manchester, New York, was one of the largest outdoor theater productions in the United States.
As a thank you for the contributions of tens of thousands of participants, volunteers and audience members over the years, the Church will present a devotional on Friday, July 9, with Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. The 2019 Hill Cumorah Pageant will also be broadcast.
The devotional and pageant broadcast will begin at 6 p.m. MDT in English, Spanish, Portuguese and ASL on broadcasts.ChurchofJesusChrist.org. After two weeks, the devotional will no longer be available for viewing, but the Hill Cumorah Pageant will be available to watch in Gospel Media, according to a Church Newsroom release.
The Hill Cumorah Pageant, originally scheduled to have its final season in 2021, was canceled due to COVID-19. Featuring its largest cast ever, the 2019 pageant had 770 participants — ranging from 6 months to 82 years old — and a 150-person staff and crew. It ran from July 11-13 and 16-20 that summer.
During the 56th Annual Mormon History Association Conference in June, Elder LeGrand R. Curtis Jr. highlighted the historical significance of the Hill Cumorah site and outlined plans to restore it to more closely resemble what Joseph Smith would have experienced there in the early 1800s.
Read more about how the Church plans to rehabilitate the Hill Cumorah site here.
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