LDS Church cancels final season of Hill Cumorah Pageant, Nauvoo Pageant postponed
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SALT LAKE CITY – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced the final season of its Hill Cumorah Pageant in Palmyra, New York is canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The final season was originally supposed to happen this summer. Instead, the church will stream the 2019 pageant on its website beginning July 9.
“This event will commemorate the contributions of tens of thousands of volunteer participants through the years,” a church news release says.
A version of the show will also be dubbed in Spanish and Portugese.
The Hill Cumorah holds a lot of significance for members of the LDS church. Church members believe it is the site where Joseph Smith found gold plates containing a record of an ancient civilization on the American continent. Smith later translated the record, which is known today as The Book of Mormon.
The Hill Cumorah Pageant is a depiction of these events that lead to the church’s organization in 1830.
The first pageant was held several miles from the site in 1928 after the church purchased the land, according to KSL. The first performance at the base of the hill took place in 1936. It eventually became an annual pageant with a cast and crew of thousands of volunteers and special effects.
The Nauvoo Pageant is also canceled this season but will return in 2022. The next performance is scheduled for July 5-30, 2022.
The Nauvoo Pageant, which includes a volunteer cast and crew as well, portrays the story of early church members settling in Nauvoo, Illinois to escape persecution in Missouri where they previously lived. This pageant relies on journals and other historical records to depict their efforts to “build a city and a temple to their God,” the pageant website says.
The Hill Cumorah and Nauvoo Pageants are one of four pageants sponsored by the church. Others include The British Pageant and the Mesa Pageant. The British Pageant, which portrays events surrounding the beginning of the church in the British Isles, is also scheduled for 2022. Specific dates have not yet been determined. It is typically held every four years.
The Mesa Pageant held annually in Mesa, Arizona, depicts the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It has not been held since renovations of the Mesa Temple began in 2018. It will continue under area leadership once the renovation is complete.
Two other pageants held in Manti and Clarkston, Utah ceased production in 2019.