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When we showed Pageant 2001 on our website, many people told us that they really enjoyed seeing the pageant take shape -- the opportunity to sit in on pageant rehearsals and to go backstage before the pageant began.  Christ's birth transformed the world, and we like to watch the transformation our Sunday Schoolers undergo during the weeks leading up to Christmas Pageant -- our celebration of the beginnings of the transformation Christ brought to us all. 

Here are a few pictures from the rehearsals for Pageant 2002 at Trinity Lime Rock -- and from the performance itself.  We hope you enjoy them!!

Okay, remember how it looked at the beginning.  Let's move forward a week, to the second rehearsal and see if things aren't getting a little better....

Second Rehearsal:
Choristers lined up...(Like any performance, we're always trying to do things better.  This idea was NOT adopted.)	Annunciation -- take 1
Annunciation, take 2.  (Much better)	Angel telling Joseph in a dream....
Angel who brings the baby to Mary	Gospel reader and angel narrator 2... (still lots of discussion and coaching going on)
"Stille Nacht" -- (that's right!  Mary sings verse one in German!)	"Bring a torch, Jeanette, Isabella" ...  (back by popular demand!)

Somehow, the moment when the costumes have been handed out is usually one where it all seems to begin to take shape.  2002 was no different.

Let's see the dress rehearsal...

Dress Rehearsal:
Donkey ears...	Dancers...
...and dancers...	...and dancers!
Gospeller reading	An angel speaks to Joseph in a dream...
Joseph negotiating....	Angel telling:  "...good tidings of great joy...."
"Away in a manger, no crib for a bed..."	Dove making her entrance

The next day, at Sunday School, the cast with speaking parts had a final read-through seated around a big table.  The animals and the smaller angels already had their parts down pat so they had their normal Sunday School morning.

It helped everybody relax a little bit when the Sunday School prepared a song for Coffee Hour to welcome the TWO babies who were baptized that morning.

Since our Pageant is performed as an integral part of the first of two Holy Eucharists celebrated on Christmas Eve, following the Old Testament Lesson, (technically, the Pageant takes the liturgical places of the Epistle and the Gospel, as well as the Homily in the worship service), the cast knew how the Pageant would actually appear.  

Christmas Eve 2002 fell on a Tuesday -- not much time to forget lines from the Sunday run-through!  By 2:30 in the afternoon, the cast was mostly assembled, and preparations of many kinds were underway.  The dancers needed a final rehearsal.  Costumes had to be put on -- for real this time.  

Here are a few pictures of the last-minute preparations....

The choir runs through their music -- (it had been decided they would stand behind the performers and wear black so as not to distract from the Pageant itself.)	The dancers are ready...
Meanwhile, in the undercroft, halos were being affixed.  (The cast was glad to welcome Amber back!)	The Shepherd's Angel gets her halo from the Wardrobe Mistress.
A shepherd -- ready to go!	Angel Gabriel -- ready to go on!

"What time is it?" was the question on most cast members' minds.  

This was the year we had PLANNED to have a formal cast photo -- but at 3:52 p.m. we all realized that this would have to wait for next year's pageant.  

At 4:02 p.m. Christine finished the organ Prelude, and we all heard Adeste Fidelis --  "O Come All Ye Faithful" in English -- start.  The Procession, headed by the Senior Warden carrying the Processional Cross, accompanied by Chris and Ben as acolytes, both veterans of many pageants themselves, and the Rector, made their way up the main aisle, and turned to begin the service in the Baptistry.

Here are a few pictures from the Pageant as it actually was performed.  (Be sure to check back and see what this looked like only a few weeks ago!) 

The Crucifer and Acolytes in the Baptistry as the Holy Eucharist begins.	At the point in the service when we would normally hear the Epistle, the Gospel Reader welcomed us. (...and warned the unwary in the congregation that, if Joseph should ask them, they should reply "No room!")
The Angel Narrators begin their dialogue from the pulpit.	While the Little Angels danced, Sarah sang...
...and was joined by the rest of the Choir -- principally made up of our current Confirmation class.	The Annunciation
An angel speaks to Joseph in a dream	The Gospeller continued the narration of that Holy Night...
Dependably, there was no room in the inn...	"Away in a manger, no crib for a bed..."
The animals made their way down the aisle and joined the group in the stable...the donkey, the cow, the sheep, and the dove...and two angels stepped momentarily out of character to sing "Bring a torch, Jeannette, Isabella"	Mary sang the first of her two solos (the second was in German!)
"The First Nowell"	The Shepherds' Angel brought us all the Good News!!!
...and the shepherds she summoned prepared to join the rest of the cast.	"Hark, the Herald Angels sing!" was followed by "Silent Night" -- and the Pageant portion of the service was at an end for another year.  The congregation exchanged The Peace, and as the cast was taking off costumes in the undercroft, the Rector singing the Sursum Corda could be heard from the sanctuary.

Pageant 2K2 at Trinity Lime Rock was over.  The cast joined the congregation at the Eucharistic Feast, and later, after the service, for a "Supper in Bethlehem" -- courtesy of the Church School mothers -- in Walker Hall. 

One visitor who had come to see the pageant performance was heard to remark to another after the service: "Those kids are really good!! What a cute little play!"   

Indeed they are, and indeed it was!  But, as the events two millennia ago that the "little play" recounted hugely transformed the world, we can all hope that Trinity Lime Rock's 2002 Christmas Pageant -- albeit surely in some far lesser way -- transformed each of us in the present.